Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-03-19

a knowledge of American industrial
methods and the secrets OF American
success in the industrial field. While
his conviction is incorrect it may serve
as salve to the wounded pride of the
British workingman and manufacturer
who have seen their supremacy swept
aside by the strength of American COM
petition. Mr. Uttley is right in one re-
spect. There are hundreds of expert
English worllmen in the factories and
mills of this country. There are thous-
dustrial nations of the globe working at
| American FORCES and lathes and guiding
| the swift spindles of American looms.
The reason they are here lies in the
fact that they are experts and is found
| in their knowledge, deNteritv and desire
to succeed. These are the qualities de-
manded by the American manufacturer
of his workingman. The English me-
chanic Mr.. Uttley found in American
Great Britain. He had brains and was
manually dextrous. In other words he
was in the American mechanics class.
He did his work because he loved t and
was ready to go full speed. Six months
assimilation made him an American
workman and gave hirn the entree to
American shops. where the ordinary
| British workman would be fatty re-
/ jected as incompetent and largely
worthless.
Mr.. Uttley fails to grasp the true
| causes for the downfall of the British
industries at the hands of this country.
He does not fail TO note that in matters
of wages and in pay for overtime the
Englishman in the United states is far
! in advance of his congener in the moth
er country. But he does not seem to
realize why these conditions do not OBJ
tain in Great Britain.
The British workman at home is very
| largely the product as we'll as the slave
of the trades unions. His hours for
work and the amount of labor TO be
| performed are fixed by the inexorable
laws of the trade union of which he
| happens to be competent. atom. His
study seems to be, not how he may best
maybe able to get for inodicum of
| grudgingly given labor. The union sets
the limit of his daily achievement to a
scale based upon mediocrity and he
must stay within the scale. He is un-
der bond not to be valuable and Keeps
to the letter of his obligation. The ov-
ertime, the spur of competition and the
| desire to excel are written thou shalt
not in the decalogue of his union. He
gang, his individuality is merged into
the machine and remains O. part of its
mechanism. He is not workman in
| the American sense. He is a unit in an
organization formed to force the great
er possible pay for the least possible
performance.
These are some of the reasons why
Mr.. Uttley found English experts in
front of our forge fires. The baneful
influence of British trades unions and
| the narrow views of British manu-
facturers have driven away those fit for
| American factories. They are selling
their labor in market that demands
their best effort and pays for 1t. The
secret of American supremacy lies as
much in the laborer as in the manufac-
turer, and the loss of Great Britain's
commercial and industrial prestige lies
as much in the self sufficient narrow
ness of British manufacturers and the
| mediocrity and mulishness of his work
men as in American enterprise and go.
Mr.. Uttley's contention that the COM
paratively small number of English
| workmen here are responsible for our
industrial greatness will scarcely carry
conviction to any but his eountrymen.
IT Is much on this order of the boys
composition on pins in which he as
serted Pins have saved peoples lives
because the people did not eat them.