The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-02-09

I'D" Yet salvation, economic or other, is
a personal matter. You cannot get 1t done
for you en- gros.
There are others, however. who hold that,
concurrently with the slow process of in
dividual awakenings. there is urgent need
for both new energies and new policies In
the great centers OF trade and commerce,
as we'll as i'm the general government. Sir
Henry Fortescue F1annery, VI. p, who is
a great authority in the engineering world,
declares for the establishment without de-
lay of a Ministry of Commerce, in imme-
date touch with the Foreign Office, which
shall ascertain and Systematically formu-
late all the Information IL can get about
every market, old and new. British con-
suls, he says, must be like the German and
American, not mere dummies TO show off
English style in various ways, but real
commercial representatives OF a CONNER
cial nation. and America, taking
up what England knew, had, he said,
greatly improved upon that original stock,
and now England must assimilate these
foreign improvements and wake up from
her mistaken belief that she knows every
thing better and can do everything better
than any other nation on earth.
OTHER PROMINENT MEN SPEAK.
Other influential men who have blown
their bugle of advice for the waking up of
commercial England are Sir John Leng.
NJ. P, Sir Sidney Waterow and Mr.. +.
II. Watts. The first of these assails the
antiquated methods of the British Patent
Office. Evidently the British policy has
been, not to encourage invention for the
sake Of trade. but to merely tolerate il for
the fees it brings in. The British Patent Of
ice turns over in profits five hundred
thousand dollars a year. To get out a
patent one must pay $500, and then 1t only
runs fourteen years, and the worse of 1t is,
says Sir John Leng, that the Patent Of
fee makes no search to find out whether or
not the patent applied for has already been
anticipated. the result being that often one
pays a large sum for a patent and In a
little time finds 1t worthless. because the
same idea had been covered by a patent
of anterior date. In marked contrast to all
this is the American way, for there, as Sir
John Leng reminds his sleepy felIow-coun-
trymen, a patent costs $40 instead of $500,
runs for seventeen years instead Of four
teen, and. better still. the United States
Patent Office never fails, when a new
patent is applied for. to find out whether or
not the idea is really new. and, therefore.
never takes money from aspiring inventors
under false pretenses-
What Sir Sydney Waterlow has to say for
the waking DIP OF England possesses pecu-
liar interest owing to the fact that this
leading business man, this chairman of so
many great metropolitan boards, was once
a London apprentice, and served his full
seven years in learning a humble trade.
Significant IT is. too, that in the opinion
OF this gentleman the chief obstruction to
commercial progress in England is the at
titude OF the working classes and especially
the trade unionists. The attempt of the
unions 10 continually decrease the hours of
labor and TO limit the output by a ''go-
easy" principle Of working. has already, he
affirms, been a great injury to English
trade, and this writer does not doubt that
in saying this Sir Sidney speaks the truth.
Mr.. z. H.. Watts, a great shipbuilding man,
uses. upon the same point. anguage that is
still stronger. England, he says, is going to
be killed by the trade unions. The working
man. he adds. is the greatest tyrant on
the face OF the earth. and such strong de-
nunciation of working-class methods is all
the more surprising in the case of Mr..
Watts, because he has just bought and
turned over 70 DIR. Barnardo's Homes, the
Norfolk County School, which, through the
generosity of this shipbuilder. is to be used
hereafter as a naval training school for
four hundred boys.
THE TRADE QUESTION.
On the larger question of foreign com
petition MI. Watts says that what is hap
pening at the present moment is that the
markets of half the world are being closed
against England. Golden predicted tina
foreigners would follow the English exam
pie and adopt free trade, but the reverse
has been the case. I've are suffering" he
says, for a lack of fair play. For instance,
an English ship cannot take a cargo from
one French port to another. nor are we
allowed by the Americans to join in their
coasting trade. But France or America
can send their ships to Calcutta and load
for London, thus competing with English
ships Mr.. Watts added that he did not
want protection. but he thought they ought
10 have fair trade, rather than free trade,
and that the colonies and the empire ought
to be brought together under one customs
house.
This yelled reference to protection is a
reminder that there are some very inhuen-
tial men in this country who do not in the
least veil their views on this subject, but
who blow boldly on the protectionist
trumpet as one of the means for waking
up England. Last month there was a joint
meeting of the Central Chamber of Agri-
culture and the Farmers Club of the
United Kingdom, and the speeches on the
occasions were of a kind, one would think,
not only to rouse the nation. but to even
stir into some semblance of active life the
somnolent occupants of 'The Cecil Family
Coach" otherwise the Salisbury govern
ment. One of these was made by Mr.. Han
bury. the minister of agriculture, who said
that President Roosevelt had occasion
lately TO congratulate the American farmer
upon his prosperity. Why was not the
English farmer a similar subject for con-
graduation? 1t was because the British
government was not helping agriculture as
il should, or as the American government
was. In England the land devoted to crops
was decreasing and the amount Of stock
was decreasing. Every agricultural inter
est, said Mr.. Hamburg. was on the down
grade. Fifty years ago agriculture was
sacrificed by free trade to the manufactur-
ing interests. The farmers and farm la
borers were the first 10 suffer. but now the
pinch was being felt by the manufacturers
and mechanics. and there was. perhaps, in
this fact. some ground for hope. The time
had come, in his judgment. when the poll