Waterbury Democrat., 1901-07-02
4 WRONG IMPRESSION.
Striker Says That England's Leader ship Is Not Lost, and Gives Figures.
 Wa tarhllrv IlllY 2 1901

Waterbury, July ?, 1901. Editor of Waterbury Democrat:
 Dear Sir: ID Saturdays issue of the Waterbury American appeared Ques- ton for MT Cowen to answer at his lecture on Sunday afternoon. I regret to say MT Cowen did not see this, be- cause 1 know he would have been glad to have replied. It seems evident that most of us have dropped taking the American for some reason, and appaf- entity none of us knew of the existence Of the question until a reporter from that paper appeared at our headquar- ters yesterday making inquiries about It. However, l am a member of the All algamated society, a citizen of Wa terbury, and q striker, and although 1 cannot do the justice to the question that probably MT Cowen could, 1 yeIl- ture to offer the following reply to the question of .'Citizen":
 l should like first to correct slight mistake made by Citizen in his re- fer1ing to the Amalgamated Society of Engineers as an English organization. This is not quite correct, as it is inter national and cosmopolitan, being ex- tended to Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand, America, etc.
 Now with regards to the question: sIs the general impression ill America that England's loss of leadership to the United States and Germany is due in large part to the restriction put upon the employers by the unions, d correct impression?"
 The answer is emphatically, no. suppose, however, it will be necessary for the sake of giving satisfaction to make some statements to Substantiate IT I 10 x,nf fJ<,,.r .a1 from any reliable source that British supremacy in the engineering trades had been lost to the United States or any other nation. and I fail to see how any one can make an intelligent reply without first being convinced that British industries are taking back seat. Facts and figures are stubborn things. and not over interesting to delve into, but here follow few from the government board of trade returns The total exports of steam engines machinery and mill work for the year 1900 was sos. 107, ,TS5, or $160,O00 less than the previous year. which was the highest on record. The exports for To- comotiyes alone last year amounted to no less than $7,504 ,545. As a matter of fact, the export of locomotives from England during the last two years has exceeded that of any three years up to lS9I. And seems to show that the i locomotive builders have been too busy attending to wants abroad to have | time to attend to making locomotives | for their own use. The only instance l where we find a depreciation of OK l ports is with textile machinery, which 1 fell off during the year nearly $3O0O,- | 00O.l On the whole, the value of en- | gineering exports from Great Britain was satisfactory. Lloyd's report in regards to shipbuilding over the whole ! world during the year 1900 shows a total capacity of, 2,564 ,627 tons. of l which the British captured 1.51O,S35 leaving 1.053, 792 tons for the rest of the world.
 I do not know if Citizen will be satisfied with this reply. In the face of these figures 1 cannot convince my. self that Englands leadership is lost Hence if the general impression in America is that such is the case, il must be evident to any fair minded in diyidual that the general impression is | wrong. That England is maintainina I the stand she is, is surprising thing I to most of us, considering the over I whelming odds with which she is con fronted. For example. I happen to bt in touch with one of the largest Eng fish bridge building concerns, and dare say it is fresh in the memory ol many how Lord Kitchener wanted { bridge for Egypt which was supplied from America. At the time I wrote | across to find out how it was that thi. country was supplying the British gov ernment with a bridge. I received :: lot of information regarding this. ant the correspondence closed with the fol lowing significant remarks, copied yer l batim from the letters: 'We don fear the Americans much in our lin
 of business, because a few years az, we used to export bridges from her and beat them in their own country But they put on an abominable tarif of 45 per cent, that. of course it is nov out of the question, and if a countr. can't crow until it gets behind 4
 per cent tariff. the growing will no disturb a single individual over here
 Wesdon't get behind a 1 per cent tariff lon anything and yet no country cal j beat us anywhere, for we comman'
 trade and prosperity at the presen
 time." Much more could be said, bu
 think the foregoing ought to conyinc
 Citizen" that his question is hardl
 correctly put.
 Yours faithfully, H. S. W.