Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1896-01-30
ALESSON FROM p

ALESSON FROM JAPAN.
The appearance Of Japan as a
serious competitor in the sale OF
manufactured goods in the
American market is one of the
most interesting of recent indus
trial manifestations. For the
past twenty years-whlch is
about as long as we have known
much about them-we have been
accustomed to think of the Jap>
anese as an aniable and child
like people, with a fine aesthetic
sense and great artistic skill, but
not at all fitted to cope with the
prosaic exactioas of this age of
steam.
The attitude Of the practical
American mind toward the jap
anese was one of patronlzing
condescension. We admired their
porcelains and lacquers and
bronzes, very much as we ads
mired the delicate color of a birds
egg or the intricate craft of its
nest building;that we should ever
come to take the Japanese ser>
iously never entered our heads.
Yet almost before we knew
what was going on, this simple,
artistic people asserted themsel-
YES as a great military power and
at the same time as an indus
trial power, and the Association
Of American Manufacturers, at
their recent meeting at Chicago,
called upon Congress to see what
steps could be taken to protect
them, the American manufacture
ers, from the Japanese invasion
of their markets. It was said
that japanese mating is crowd
ing out the cheaper kinds of
Philadelphia carpets and that
Japanese rugs r sold in pref
erence to American made rugs
of higher value. Of course this
is attributed to the cheapness of
Oriental labor; but is not really
the artistic quality Of the labor
that has opened our markets to
Japan?
American ingenuity has con
the most perfect textile
machinery, but it has been slow
to learn how to make beautiful
fabrics. The Sophisticated,
clear-sighted, nature-loving Jap
anese, trained from their child
hood in the use Of eyes and
hands, and with the sense of
beauty bred into their very ma
ture, take our machinery and with
it make things that our own peo-
pie recognize as better than they
make themselves. In other
words, the artistic culture of the
little Jap, which we supposed to
have no practical value, has en-
abled him to enter the Industrial
field at a bond, with an equip-
ment that all our mechanical skill
has meyer supplied. He has
learned what he had to teach him
very easily. but it would require
generations for us to learn wha0|
he has by intuition.
So we cry out for a tariff to
protect us against his competi-
ton. Perhaps that may be right;
but the resolution of the manu~
facturers recalls what their pres
ident, Mr., Search, said to a sim.
liar gathering at Boston last
year, that mo amount of tariff
legislation, important as it is,
can possibly preserve our home
to our manufacturers
unless they make the quality of
the things produced equal if not
to those of their foreign
competitors" and that what we
most want in this country is
''that protection which springs
from the cultivation of our pow
ers and which leads to the happy
and elegant expression of our
thought in line and color"-such
protection .'as comes from the
production of artistic results and
by sheer force of their winsome>
ness enlists the attention of our
people,"
No doubt the Japanese are now
making plenty of cheap and in
artistic goods, but it was .'by
sheer force of their winsomes
ness" that their products first
made their way into our markets,
and it is upon that ground,
through the cultivation of an ar>
tistic sense among our own work
men, that American manufacture
ers must seek protection.
The Treasury gold reserve at
the close of business yesterday
stood at $50, 533, 513. There was