The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-04-01
CHEAPER BICYCLES.
What is Expected When the Japanese
Wheels Arrive.
Effect ON the American Market-The
Land of the Mlkado as Manufacturing
Rival-Ski1l of the Workmen.

Washington Star.
Will Japan be able to make bicycles
and sell them in this country for $25
apiece?
This is the question which is exciting
considerable comment among people in
terested in bicycles. 1t is answered neg
atively and with most pronounced en-
phasis by the bicycle manufacturers in
America, who claim it to be impossible
tor even the cheap Japanese labor to
turn out high-grade wheels for anything
like this price. On the other hand, tine
question has excited IA reasonable doubt
in the minds of many people who are ia
miliar with the condition of affairs
brought about by the inroads japanese
man ufaoturers are making into Ameri.
can markets.
So serious has become this competition
of cheap Japanese labor, combined with
the skill of Japanese craftsmen, to man
ufacturers End merchants on tho Pacific
| coast that Congress has been asked to
come to the protection CT American goods
and put high tariff on the Japanese
products so as to equalize the difference
in the labor cost. In the house q few
days ago MIR. New lands of Nevada pre-
sented a resolution of the chamber of
commerce of San Francisco, calling the
attention of the country and of Congress
| to the invasion of manufactured pro-
ducts from Oriental countries, particu-
| larly Japan.
"The Pacific coast" says Mr.. New
lands, "finds itself threatened with new
danger from Of Oriental invasion, not the
pan, but an invasion of the products of
| the cheap labor Of the latter country.
| Recently an American firm of high
| standing in Japan but an invasion of the
products of the cheap labor of the latter
country Recently an American firm of
high standing in Japan has established
| an agency in san Francisco and is en-
gagged in selling all the various products
of Japanese manufacture. There Is
| scarcely anything that is manufactured
in America that is not included in the
catalogue of Japanese products-watohes,
| bicycles, rugs, carpets, cotton, WOODEN
and silk goods, and almost every other
form of product They have been put
| upon tire market at such low prices as
TO absolutely defy competition from the
production of American manufacturers.
A Japanese manufacturer who is now
in this country selecting models to take
| back to Japan for his men to work upon,
and who visited the bicycle show in New
| York, was interviewed upon this subject,
as follows:
49, have only to send the best bicycle /
| end in this show 20 Japan in order to be
l nnt hall ,nth ~ liz
good turnsd out there within six months.
1t will take our workmen longer to
make bicycle than 1T does yours, but
as we pay skilled metal workers and av-
erage of thirty cents day we can afford
| to be little slower. Some of your man.
ufacturers have told me that they had
sold goods and machines to Japan, but
that after one or two orders had been
flied no more came. The reason is that
the Japanese are making these things
! themselves. AS yet there is no treaty
between the United States and Japan
under which your patents are protected,
SO that we have no royalties to pay in
ventors. AT every one OF your industrial
exhibitions you will find Japanese visi-
tors, who, like myself are on the look out
for the newest and best of everything.
| have picked out four bicycles from this
show which will go to Japan by the next
steamer from San Francisco. Our bioy-
cles will be one year behind yours In
style, but they will cost half the price
and be just as good.
"You have probably heard that we
Japanese are wonderful at initiating any
thug we see. The explanation is simple
CROUCH. Every child boy or girl, in the
Japanese schools-and education is far
more compulsory with us than with you
learns to draw accurately and to esti-
mate the shape and relation of things he
| nr1ro IF xupiti xpit
a brush, and in which every stroke must
have a certain value of it's own, helps
this eye-training A written page, or
even line, with us is sort of picture,
good writer's ranking as artists, and the
child is taught TO copy such work with
an accuracy of which you have no con-
ception."
A members of the House who returned
not long ago from visit to Japan said
today:
81 have no doubt that the Japanese
will soon begin to invade the American
market in earnest with thei1 bicycles
The wheels saw in Japan were not the
latest models and probably were not as
highly finished AS the American wheels,
as the Japanese manufacturers have not
yet supplied themselves with the ma
chinery TO bring the work up to perfec-
ton, but the bicycles were every way as
durable and satisfactory as the American
| prOQ Ine Japanese nave started out
to make everything that we make and
they are in earnest about 1t. The cheap
ness Of the labor, combined with the
skill and adaptability of tho workmen,
as we'll as their indefatigabe industry,
will make them very formidable rivals
to the American manufacturers.
A recent issue of San Francisco news
paper stated that a manufacturer of Ja-
pan had established an agency in San
Francisco for the sale of Japanese man.
ufactured goods for the purpose of nnder-
selling American products. Similar
agencies are being established east and
west now by representatives of japanese
houses. The agency is selling the best
parlor matches in tin-lined boxes, de-
livored to the merchant, freight and
duty paid, at 80 cents gross. He also
sells doors, sashes, blinds and all articles
of wooden ware, cooperage stock, otc.,
OF japanese manufacture, at from 80 to
90 per cent less than they can be manu-.
featured for in this country, with all
freight and duty paid by japanese i'm,
porters. Also clocks, watches, boots
shoes, clothing, hats, gloves, fancy goods
and notions on similar terms.
Their agents are buying cottoon mill
machinery and shipping to Japan, and
will take our cotton from here to Japan
and send 1t back manufactured in this