Daily camera., 1899-08-02
WORKMEN DISPLACED
Introduction of Improved Machinery
Taking Their Jobs.
Some AYtisans Are Now Datarsiy
without Employment - Dvsn
the So-Called ProfsssiOns
Are Threatened.

English workmen, II their ideas are
correctly reflected by their trade jour
nals, are beginning to view with alarm
the rapid and steady decline of various
trades and callings in Great Britain
owing to the introduction of improved
machinery in America, Norway, Ger
many and other coutnres and the enor-
nous exports to England of manufac-
tured goods which were once made in
England, but which the reduced cost
of manufacture in this country have
crowded out of Englishmen's hands.
Small wooden articles, such as clothes
pegs, skewers, umbrella sticks and
mousetraps, which have an enormous
sale in England, are not made in that
country any more. They are all
shipped from the United States, be-
cause they can be made more cheaply
here. Oars for rowboats, flooring and,
indeed, all the parts that go to the max
ing of wooden houses are shipped into
the British isles in such quantities and
at such prices that the carpenter is
almost suparfuity there, except to put
the parts together. The planning mills
and sash, door and blind factories of
this country deliver at English towns
all of the component parts of house
| so much cheaper than they can be made
in England that the carpenters are in
despair. This, Of course, is due to the
improved machinery in use here, which
minimizes the cost of production.
The coopers are beginning to realize
Jat hn lly n
of employment, since the great cooper
ing establishments OF this country ship
vast quantities of wood cut into slaves,
heads and wooden hoops, so that the
| English cooper has but to put them to-
gether. They are shipped "knock
| down" so as to economize space on the
ships, and are put together in England by
boys at small wages. The stained glass
| industry, too, has received setback
through the introduction of sort of
gelatine film which can be readily ap-
piled to ordinary window glass, and
which is perfect imitation of stained
glass. 1t comes, Of course, in all colors,
| and a stained glass window which for
merly cost $50 can now be perfectly i'm
tated for $3.50, and the stained glass
workers cannot compete against such
prices.
Label stickers in the canneries are
now face to face with machine which
will label 10000 cans in ten hours,
which does not give the hand worker
much of a chance. Even the profess
sions, so-called, are threatened by mod
ern inventions. The shorthand report
ers are watching with dismay the i'm
provements being made in the phono-
graph. Experts are now at work try
ing to devise scheme whereby the
phonograph can be run slow enough to
enable compositor to operate his lino-
type machine direcely from the phono-
graph and set up a speech without the
Intervention of written copy" When.
this is accomplished the shorthand man
will have to 60 driving an ice wagon.
English inventors are hard at work
on ranie, peculiar vegetable fiber
which they expect will supersede cot
ton. 1t grows in the Malay islands,
China and Japan, but could be raised in
England if the demand warranted. 1t
is silky, much stronger than cotton and
finer than fax. The chemical treat
ment to which it is now subjected rots
the fiber, but when that is overcome it
is thought it will closely push cotton
on account OF its cheapness and the ease
with which it is Chicago
Chronicle.