Arizona republican., 1912-04-29
Says Democratic Program of Free Sugar Would Ruin Business in
 America
OTHER GOSSIP
 OF METROPOLIS
City Has Heavy Fire Loss; Exploding of Golf Balls Brings Up New
 Problem
1 Especial COrreSbOHdence]

[
 NEW YORK, April 2S.-Industrial and commercial New York is taking particular interest in what seems to be a case of -lese majesty as the result of the testimony of a former subject of the kaiser to the effect that European business methods, par ticularly those of Germany, which have long been held up by industrial efficiency engineers" as models for this country to copy are after all in many respects far behind those in use here That the greater efficiency in the methods of production and manufacture followed by foreign na- tions is largely imaginary is the cheering conclusion reached by Hans Mendelson, a native of the land of the kaiser but now an American citi- zen, who has just completed an elab- crate comparison of the methods em- ployed in the two countries. "Neither German farming nor German manu- featuring is by any means the model of efficiency so many people think,
 says Herr Mendelson. The low wag- es are unquestiOnably a temptation Many of the factories are antiquated. for a great waste of human labor. The technical supervision of the de tails of the factory processes is not so careful as here. Take the beet sugar industry for example since it Is common to both countries and in wolves both agriculture and manufac- turing It is true that Germany can produce sugar more cheaply than the United States, and that the removal of the tariff duty probably would re- suit in the wiping out of the industry On this side of the Atlantic But this
 difference is due, partly to the lower
 prices paid for the raw material, and partly to the abundance Of hand la bor and the low wages paid for it in
 Europe, and not to the superiority ot
 German machinery and manufacturing
 methods, as is often claimed. In fact
 I found the American factories more fully equipped with up to date ma- chinery than those in Germany lr
 the west expensive automatic un- loading devices are in use at all oi the factories. Such machinery is un- Known in Germany. The technica supervision and detailed cost-accOunt- ing systems followed in the United States are not to be found in Europe Americans have been lectured SC much about their inferior methods by | so-called efficiency engineers tha1 they are prone to believe that they have fallen behind their foreign com petitors in some way. but my observa' tion is that their manufacturing methods in many respects really ar( superior to those followed abroad"
 That more than anything else New York. to become a modern reproduc tiOn of ancient Rome, needs an III to date Nero to fiddle at it's burning | is indicated by the report of the flr' l losses in this city during the pas twelve months. To what an alarm | ing extent property is being wiped | out here by conflagration is indicate, ! by the report which shows that thes' | losses aggregated for the period thu l enormous sum of $12,470,000 or mor' | than $1.000,0O0 a month. More sig nificent still is the fact that this fig ure represents an increase of nearl! 1 fifty per cent over the total O | $S,591 ,OOO for the preceding year. A l this rate of increase the end of tn present decade, that is the year 1920 l would show an annual fire loss O 1 about $2OC000, 900. The most i'm l portant factor in this great increas l seems to exist in the city's large 1 buildings, since although the loss fo l 1911 far exceeded that of 1910 tn | fires in the last year were less b. l 537 than in 1910 while the averag 1 loss from each fire in 1911 was sS5 as against $596 in 1910. As usua carelessness with lighted matches ac | counted for a large number. of fires | 1866 in all. Lighted cigars or cigar cites caused 970 fires and carelessnes with lighted candles 509. To handl the work of protection the city nov has 442O uniformed officers and me and 56O civilian employees in variou l bureaus. Perhaps the best idea c what the fire fighting problem as now exists in New York reall amounts to is found in the estimat of the money needed for the mainten
 ance of the fire department this yea It is 1000.
 The golf ball has now been adde
 to the list of deadly weapons an
 now that the season is beginning
 behooves golfers throughout the coun
 try to take warning from the fate (
 a local golfer and to refrain from to
 much curiosity as to how a golf ba
 is made. Of course many person
 Continued on Page 8.