Omaha daily bee., 1902-09-03
AS OTHERS SEE Us.
What the British Industrial Experts
Discovered in the United states.

WnnN the nEltlun AhuuANEhaA G1pCEth
D~IscOvered in the United states.
Philadelphia Ledger.
A commission Of the British Iron Trade
association, which visited this country to
study it's great steel and iron manufactur-
ing industries. has published a report
which is discussed in some Of the English
technical papepas The report itself has
not yet reached the treasury bureau OF
statistics. but some extracts from 1t have
been printed by the English papers. The
commission was composed Of J. 8. Jeans,
an authority on the subject; Axel Sahlin,
an expert In blast furnace work; Ebenezer
Parkes, a specialist in sheet and bar mill
practice, and Enoch James, who gave spe-
cial attention to the steel industry. Mr..
James says that It Is a mistake to suppose
that Americans work harder than Eng
Iishmen. They have to be attentive in
guiding operations and quick in manipu-
lating levers and similar easy work. and
they are much more DESTROYS than Eng
lish workmen to get out large quantities,
but they do not work harder. They are
better paid and more regular in their at
tendance at the works, loss Of time
through drinking habits or otherwise not
being tolerated.
Mr.. sahlin gives similar testimony. and
adds that Americans aspire to the higher
grades Of work and leave to foreigners
the rough manual labor. He saw Polish
and Hungarian iaborers working for 81
to $3.50 per day alongside Of American
rollers averaging s12 per day. The aver
age wages of men employed at Home
stead was, according to Mr.. Carnegie, SO
per day, or, as Mr.. sahlin puts it. a1s7
per annum, against R6s per annum in
Lancashire and a79 per annum IN South
Wales. Mr.. Jeans gave special attention
to the cost Of living, and concluded that
the average American workman. in most
of the essentials Of life. could live as
cheaply as his British brother. If this be
approximately true the American must
have much the better OF 1t. with average
wages in these industries OF 1886 against
$340 in Lancashire and 1896 in South
Wales.
Commenting on these reports. the Lon
don statist approves Mr.. sahlin's remark
that ut is not the guns that win the bat
tie. but the men behind them" and adds:
"Wha the American admires and honors
is the ability to do; that capacity In a
man, through his own sagacity, nerve, en-
terprise and skill, to create and employ
a fortune. Nobody is above his work.
Everybody works. and for the sake of
work. and thus has been produced in Amer
lea within a generation an Industrial po-
tentiality more wonderful and more to be
feared than all the factories and machinery
and plants that these workers have ere
ated. It comes to this, then, that Amer
lean labor is not more %efhcient. though II
is better paid. than ours; and that Amer
lean manufacturing development is due
to the persistent, unresting industry which
once characterized the Briton, but for
which trade unionism and athletics have
given an apparently growing distaste. All
the reporters. however seem struck with
the strenuousness Of American life. The
comparative absence Of a leisured class IL
noted as one OF the prominent character
~istics Of the principal cities and Industrial
centers OF the United States. In the ave-
nues Of industry a mar without a regular
business. or who Is not concerned In the
development Of some industry. is as a nst
out OF water. Nowhere, We are assured, IL
the struggling youth more kindly encour.
aged, more generously aided and more
readily trusted-than in America; and Il
is pleasant to read of an esprit du corpI
among the works managers which one
would hardly expect to md In a land o.
such feverish competition"
This is not merely complimentary; Il II
true. AS q people we work hard becaus'
we like to work; we are ambitious and
enterprising. and It Is the human factor
, not our machine tools that foreign com
petitiors have TO dread, now that the Amer
lean people have begun TO enter the mar
kets OF the world.