The San Francisco call., 1901-10-15
ADJUSTMENTS.
DECAY OF BRITISH INDUSTRY.

THE special industries OF which Great Britain
once enjoyed practical monopoly have so far
declined and in many cases have so completely
disappeared that English observers are driven to
search for the cause.
Benjamin Taylor, OF the Glasgow Herald, has re-
Gently published his conclusions as to the cause
which he finds in the policy of trade unions Mr..
Taylor says: In theory the trade union is an or
ganzaton for the protection of labor against. the
tyranny aid oppression OF capital. In practice the
British trade union is an organization for the re-
straint of labor and the manacng of capital
The modern trade union is a combination for the
sole purpose of frtherng the supposed interests of
the workmen without regard to the interests of the
trade craft whole. In the old system there
the element OF solidarity in the relations between
capital and labor. In the system there is the
element o. antagonis In the old system the crafts
man prospered according his skill and industry
In the new system skill and industry are reduced to
one denomin2tor called the trade union rate
of wage. II American manufacturers are enabled to
underse their British rivals in some of their pet in
dustfies it is not because the American workman is
j better craftsman than the Brtish-he is indeed
often imported from Britain-but because he is an
unfettered producer. That is say, American Labor
is more productive than British"
He declares that the trade union theory that If the
work OF the world IS spread out thin there will be
just enough to go round is a fallacy and says that
if England finally fails utterly in the industrial race
it will not be because her worImen cannot create as
well as others, but because they will not A Ger
man or American workman will give equal and sim
uaneous attention three four or six machines or
tools. while his trade union compels the British
workman to conhne himself to one in order that
employment may be given to half dozen men who
ought to be busy elsewhere.
Citing specific instances he says: ct was. for ex
ample, the exactions and limitations demanded by
the union ship builders of the Thames that drove
the great shipbuildng industry from London to the
northern rivers. where it has lourished while the
Thames has left only shipyard of any importance
The like eXacons and limitations OF the trade unions
drove lace making from Nottingham and the flint
glass and bottle manufacture to Germany and Bel
GUM. Flint glass used to be very large and lucra
tive business in Great Britain afordng highly paid
employment to thousands of workers who had their
trade union. That union waxed fat and kicked on
the subject OF apprentices 1t succeeded in enforcing
strict limitations the number of boys who might
be apprenticed in any one year in any one factory
Then they put the on wages until they raised
the pay Of ordinary journeyman to three pounds
ten shillings and four pounds per week Their mo-
nopoly Of labor was complete The Germans stepped
in and took the trade, bodily from under the nose
OF the glass trade union which does not now in the
whole United Kingdom contain as many members as
there workers in a single German factory The
industry IS gone except two three high class con-
Germs making costly tableware for the wealthy"
II viii be that it is not so much question of
wages the limiting of production that has han
ished many industries from Great Britain and sent
them to take root prohtaby on the Continent or in
the United States IF Mr. Taylor is right in his con-
clusions they carry lesson for producers every
where Free labor and free capital seem TO be the
best and happest partners in industrial production