The age-herald., 1901-06-16
Is 1t Commercial Dishonesty
BY MAURICE M. HINTON.

The statements of Sir Ernest Paget and Sir Alfred Hickman in the matter of American machinery and steel manufac- lures has attracted the attention of the whole commercial world. Charges have been made that locomotives built in the United States and used on the Midland Railroad in England have not the dura- bility of those of English build. This ex- perience, they claim, is not exceptional, on the contrary, 1t is the rule, and en- gineers in India report in a similar tenor.
 Sir Alfred Hickman states that the Goteikh viaduct In Burmah, constructed by the Pennsylvania Steel Company and the American locomotives in India are expensive failures. Incidents accumulate pointing to the inferiority of American manufactures when the basis is iron and steel Behind these charges are the re- ports of engineers factory and repair shop superintendents and others who have. or claim to have. special knowl- edge These sensational charges have awakened as might be expected, the American manufacturers who hasten to deny these allegations. It is sincerely to be hoped that they will be able to con- vince the British officials that they are in error in the meantime the wide spread circulation of the charges has made an unmistakable impression upon foreign buyers. The basis of trade IS faith. If faith in American steel and iron is shattered we may expect to lose a great foreign market
 It will not do to shrug the shoulders and to deny t.ese charges. It will not do to cry them down as commercial islanders created in the madness of ieai-
 |, s,1n ln ish merchant to a great disadvantage and forced backward the ironmasters of England The accusation that these charges of inferiority are raised for the sole purpose of destroying American trade will not do. They must be met fairly and squarely and disapproved or the prestige of America will be lost in the foreign markets.
 This has happened before. Tn 1880 we sold annually in foreign markets 400oO,- GOO pounds of butter, which yielded our farmers $6, 600. .000 In 1895 our butter ex- ports had shrunk to 5,500.000 pounds, val ued at s916,000 or a loss of So,775.00O There was a cause for this. The sterling quality of American butter having been estab- lished and it's reputation assured, dishon- est exporters adultefated the butter and reaped a harvest. But they destroyed the industry Ever since the depart ment of agriculture has sought to re claim the market by strictly inspecting the butter exported and by marking the grades on the packages. But the market in the meantime had been gained by the Danish farmer. and the government of Denmark insists upon the exportation of only the highest grades. Today. in London, American butter of grade equal to the Danish. cannot command by to cents to the pound the price willingly naid for the Danish.
 In our owp domestic market it is the experience of the buyer that when manufacturer has established his grade and his custom the commodity sold soon begins to become inferior in quality It is so in tobaccos, in metal ware, in pins and in almost everything. The manufac- turer seems to desire a speedy profit, even if it ultimately wrecks his enter prise.
 In this era of stock jobbing a tendency is noticeable to swell the earning powers of a corporation in order to speedily es- tablsh a dividend paying power, and thereby add value to the great issue of stock. The aim seems not to be so much the establishment of a permanent indus try with an ever increasing trade, there by multiplying the earning power of the