The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

16 7 MARINE REVIEW. [December 28, WHY ENGLAND FEELS AMERICAN COMPETITION. BY WALTER M. McFARLAND,* The fact of American competition in British home and foreign markets has become so evident in some striking cases of late as to arouse a very natural inquiry with a view to determining, if possible, what has enabled Americans to enter a field where it seemed for so many years that the British manufacturers were absolutely impregnable. The specific cases which have called the greatest attention to the circumstance are the Atbara bridge and the supplying of Baldwin locomotives for some of the English railroads, and the reasons why British owners purchased in America rather than at home have been thoroughly exploited so that every- body understands them. I take it, however, that the object of the series of articles now running in Engineering is broader than a discussion of these few cases, and is really to take the shape of an inquiry as to whether, on the whole, opportunities and methods in America are better than in England for manufacturing industries, and, if so, in what the American superiority consists as viewed by a citizen of the latter country. The writer has the pleasure of knowing personally a number of very eminent gentlemen in English manufacturing enterprises, and may say at the very beginning t at he believes them the peers of any manuiacturers anywhere in enterprise and ability, and if these gentlemen could be considered typical ot all English manufacturers, we might at once leave out of consideration any question of lack of progressiveness on the part of the proprietors; in- Geed, as is well known, in certain lines English manufacturers are not only fully abreast of what is done elsewhere, but are undoubtedly the leaders. However, from the statements in the English journals, and of Engl.sh- men who have visited this country, it would seem that in some of the industries where American competition has been especialy felt, the m:nu- facturers have not emulated the example of their confreres in other lines, and have been going backward both in factory organization and in the © adoption of new methods and new tools. One point which seems to the writer deserving of attention is the fact that for a great many years the United States was unable to supply its entire home market. It must be remembered that the population of the country has increased very rapidly, due not only to a high birth rate, but to an enormous immigration. Until manufacturing enterprises were able to meet the demands at home, they were, oi course, unable to compete with anybody outside. It is to be remembered, further, that the growth oi manufactures in this country is of very much more recent date than in England, so that it required a considerable pericd to supply the experience necessary to make factories efficient and to develop the peculiarly Ameri- can methods which prevail. It seems to be the tendency in all manufac- turing countries where the people are progressive and enterprising to de- velop, in time, a greater output than is sufficient for home needs; so that it was inevitable in a country so richly endowed by nature as the United States, that when sufficient time had elapsed to enable the needs of the home market to be supplied, American manufacturers woud enter the competition for the markets of the world. Apparently only a few peope had thought of this tendency, and it was brought to popular notice by recent events, but the final outcome wouid have been just the same even if these particular cases had not occurred. One of the greatest advantages possessed by manufacturers in the United States is the comparative freedom which they enjoy in establishing and conducting a business. The ease with which companies can be formed, land secured, and the facilities for transportation, are all, as we aze led to believe, from what English writers have stated as conditions in that country, much greater in America than in England. It 1s aot at all an uncommon thing in the United States for a manufacturiuz concern tc receive a gift of the land necessary for its purposes, with freedom from taxation for a long period of years, and sometimes with a substantial bonus in addition, for locating in a special place, the object being to build up a factory village. These gifts, of course, reduce fixed charges, and thereby reduce the cost of the product, and, further, it is obvious that the factories would be located where there are decided natural advantages. The much smaller amount of government regulation of private enterprise; which obtains in the United States than in England would also a-coin, to a certain extent, for the greater strides in American industries. S_verat prominent Englishmen, well acquainted with the circumstances, have told the writer of a number of promising enterprises which were absolutely throttled in England by parliamentary enactments, or governmental regu- lations which made it simply impossible to get any benefit from improve- ments; a notable example being in the case of motor vehicles, whee for a long time the permissible speed was kept at something like four to six miles per hour. It may be that in America we have too free a hand, but it would certainly seem that in England the reverse is true. We are led to believe in this connection also, that in many cases enterprises in England are hampered by too great a consideration for vested interests which would be unfavorably affected by new ones. There seems also in the United States to be a greater disposition on the part of large capitalists to take chances in embarking in new enter- prises. This is due, perhaps, to the fact that a vast majority of our wealthy men have made their fortunes instead of inheriiing them, and the very qualities which enable a poor boy to become a wealthy manufacturer, necessarily make him better fitted for launching out in new enterpr ses and taking great risks than the capitalist whose fortune is inheri ed, and who has never had the experience of building up a fortune himself. Some- what connected with the foregoing thought, and also with the freedom irom tradition natural in a very new country, is the fact that there seems a tendency in America never to consider anything, however satisfactory, as a finality, but always to be reaching out for something beter. We have all heard the story of the English bishop on his deathbed, who, when being consoled by his chaplain with the statement that he would soon be *Mr. W. M. McFarland, late chief engineer, U. S. Navy. has for some time past been connected, with the management of affairs of the Westinghouse companies. This article, reproduced from Engineering of London, is one of a long series of communications from Americans on the same! subject. sc much better off, replied that he had been entirely satisfied with his condition in this world; and it is possible that something of this trame oi mind has been exisient with respect to manuiacturing in England, whose civilization and conditions are of such long standing; while, as already stated, the innumerable cases of wealthy men who have risen from very numble circumstances in this country ho.d out a constant incentive to others to .o.low their examp.e by going in for new enterprises, and often taking great risks. It hardly seems necessary to refer to the greater extent to which machinery has replaced hand labor in the United States than in England, as this has been discussed so often; but it is only fair to remark in this connec.ion that in a gieat many cases Americans were rcally diiven to this by the imposibility of securing an adequate amount of labor. Of course the fact, which soon became patent, that it was decidedly cheaper in the long run to make a considerable investment in labor-saving ma- chine1y, has led to constant efforts to devise such machinery in ail lines: of manufacture. A summary of what has thus iar bcen said would be that many natural conditions in America are more favorable to manu.acturing efficiency than is the case in England; that the peculiar social condi.ions o. the country tend to develop a greaier amount of enterprise on the part of manutacturers; that there is greater freedom to enter and pursue munu- iacturing enterprises in the Umited States than in England, and, finally, that while in many industries, English factories take the lead, in a num- ber of others, on the showing of Englishmen themselves, there has been an unwillingness to adopt the latest and most advanced methods and tools. Coming now to the question of labor, it may be well to remember the report written some years ago by Mr. J. S. Jeans, called '"England's Supremacy," in which a comparison is made of the conditions of labor in all the manufacturing countries of the world, and where it was shown very thoroughly that it is not the cheapest labor which makes the cheapest - product by any means, the most notable instance being where labor was the very cheapest; and if the writer remembers correctly, Mr. Jeans showed that in several lines of industry the value of the output per opera- tive in the United States was materially higher than in any other country; and, finally, that the cost of a given output was less in the United States than in England, in spite of the fact that wages in the United States were higher. It seems to the writer that any explanation of this fact, which has a bearing of the greatest importance on the question under discussion, is - due in part to the institutions of the country, or rather to the social con- diions. In the United States it is not only possible, but is a very frequent occurrence, for a man to start as a workman and finish as a miliionaire, ho.ding as high a social position as anybudy, and both meri.ing and re- ceiving the greatest respect of all around him. The greatest benefactor of one of the leading colleges of this country was just such a man. Where this is possibie it gives workmen an incentive to do their best work, such as is impossible in a country where social classes are fixed and almost absolutely rigid, and where it is exceedingly difficult for any but men of remarkable genius to rise from the ranks. In industrial America the con- ditions are very much like those in Napoleon's army, where every soldier carried the baton of a marshal in his knapsack. Another thing to be remembered is that, altogether apart from the superior ability of native American mechanics (of which we Americans are so fond of boasting), the working men of today in American shops are by no means all of American birth, a very large proportion having come from different coun- tries in Europe. Now it goes without saying that the workmen who em - grate are, as a rule, those with enterprise and push, so that the chances are more than even that these are the best workmen so far as manual skill goes, in addition to being the most enterprising. If this is a fact, it would mean that the cream of the English, as well as of the Continental, work- nien are coming to America and assisting in the fine work in the {factories hoe, to the decided reduction of the average ability of the workmen who remain. What induces these men to come to America is, of course, what has been stated just before--the chance to rise from the class of manual workers to that of directors of labor. It seems to an American that one fearful handicap to success in English industries is the short-sighted and ruinous policy followed by the labor unions. The great engineers' strike, which began in the summer of 1897, was an illustration of this fact; and, a.tthoujh the workmen may not have realized it at the time, and possibly do not even yet, there can be little doubt that the masters were their true friends in resisting the claims which they then put forward, and which, if they had been conceded, would have effectually ruined English industry. No fair-minded man, however cold-blooded he may be in business for a moment denies that working men have rights as well as owners, but the men too often fail to recognize that the proposition is equally true when stat<d inversely, and that the owners have rights as well as themselves. To the w.iter it seems very clear that until there can be such an understanding between the men and the masters in England as to enable the men to realize that their true interest lies in leaving the masters absolutely free to organize their fac- tories and conduct their business in the most efficient way, English indus- try will be terribly hampered in its competition with countries where better conditions prevail. It seems unnecessary to say anything about the Amcrican system of manufactuiing to standards, and of endeavoring to get consulting engineers to order these standards rather than special ma- chines, as this has already been thoroughly discussed in Engineering and elsewhere. The most obvious thing to do, if one believes that another runs his works better than he does his own, is for him to go and see how the other fellow does it; and the fact that English manufacturers are not asl ep, is shown by the great number who are visiting América to study the methods in the most successful shops. Some have even vone so far as to get acknowledged American leaders to come to England and re-design their works; one case being specially notable, because the man who was asked