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26 MARINE REVIEW. _ BURDENS OF ENGLISH MANUFACTURERS. The Review had occasion last week to call attention to the fact that Andrew Carnegie and Arthur Chamberlain had made speeches in ' England encouraging the English manufacturer and telling him not to _ fear American competition in spite of the superior natural advantages. . We are now enabled to give the greater part of Mr. Chamberlain's speech, which was delivered at Birmingham. The competition of iturope and the United States he regarded largely as the bogey of poli- ticians and newspaper paragraphists. For him it had very few terrors. _ Individual businesses, no doubt, waxed and waned, but British manu- facturers were never as a whole, it appeared to him, more confident, more energetic, more successful, and--perhaps he ought to say this in _a whisper--more wealthy. He should be the last to deny that foreign . competition had its dangers and foreign competitors their advantages, but the restrictive tendency of modern legislation had more terrors for him than all the competition of the foreigner. The United States no doubt had its advantages. Its chief advantages he took to be a pro- tected home market with about double England's population and a large measure of freedom to work out their own ideas without all that. grand- motherly legislation from which the British manufacturer suffered. The . home market was the mainstay of every manufacturing industry, Unless they had a large demand for their products at home they were nut in a position to compete successfully with anyone abroad. There was no doubt protectidn was a great advantage to the manufacturer and, there- fore, a great advantage to their competitors in the United States. He did not say protection was an advantage to the country, but he was sure it was an advantage to the manufacturer of any country. What happened to the agriculturists, the professional classes, the con- sumers, was no affair of his, but that protection would give manufactur- ers largely increased opportunities of making profit he was perfectly sure. Therefore he realized that in England they suffered in proportion from the absence of a protected market at home, and that, although he did not specially complain of it, it ought to be borne in mind by their critics when they referred to the occasional success of their rivals. He did not consider that England suffered any disadvantage by reason of deficient education. As a matter of fact, he would not exchange Birmingham workpeople for those of any other country on the face of the earth. He could not help thinking that the craze for education would disappoint its votaries. There was a tendency in it to spoil good workmen in order to ' make bad managers who were not wanted. For ninety-nine out of every 100 the workshop was the best and cheapest education. There was only room under modern conditions for a very few experts and for still fewer masters, and those who were.endeavoring consciously or unconsciously to make all masters were endeavoring to rear a cone on its point. There was an immense amount of talk and writing, and it was extra- - ordinary to notice how small a part the real English manufacturers took in the discussion. The politician, the philanthropist, and the newspaper man told them how ignorant, how depressed, and decadent they were, but the manufacturers kept silent, they paid the income-tax, and the income-tax continued to increase. True they suffered from disadvantages from which their competitors were free, but they were disadvantages which were due to the same politicians and philanthropists, and in spite of them there never was a time in the history of the country when the manufacturers found employment for so many people, nor when they paid on the whole such high wages nor when they made on the whole such large profits. Who were the manufacturers who were depressed? Was it the coalmasters? Surely not. Was it the ironmasters? Only a year or two ago they were having the 'best period they had ever had in their history, or at all events for a long time. Was it the ship owners, was it the engineers, of whom it was complained that they were so busy that they could not execute orders in a reasonable time? Was it the elec- tricians or the chemical manufacturers? As a manufacturer he moved among manufacturers, but he could not meet with the manufacturers of whom he read in the newspapers as being depressed and unable to meet" the competition of the world. It was true they had burdens and he would call attention to two burdens from which they suffered in a greater degree than their foreign competitors. They suffered from railway rates and strikes, but he thought manufacturers were quite capable of manag- ing these matters for themselves without outside interference, but the burdens they were incapable of dealing with were imposed on them from outside. The first burden was the constant interference with methods and - management that was now introduced by parliament and 'the local boards. The cost of all they bought unless they bought abroad, and the cost of all they made and of all that they sold, whether they sold at home or abroad, was largely increased by harassing legislation. They were inspected to death, and they were hampered at every step. As an instance, electric tramcars and tram-lines and the electric industries generally had been largely strangled by the interference of the home office and the local boards, and.as the result they had to go to the United States, where the industry had been allowed to attain its full power, for information as to the best machinery and the best methods in that department of industry. This was due to no deficiency on the part of English manufacturers, but to the interference of parliament and local bodies. The effect was to destroy initiative, to discourage invention, and to diminish the sense of individual responsibility. There was no amount of education, no amount of book-learning that would make up to the people for the loss of grit that was caused by all this outside nursing and interference with them. The other burden was the great and increasing rates. The rates, for whoever's benefit they were levied. were certainly not levied for the benefit of the manufacturers. He could not find that the local rates they paid were the slightest use to them. The company paid in England over £2,500 a year in local rates. In Ireland they paid for the same rates £80 a year, yet for manufacturing facilities and for the health and comfort of their workpeople they were not a penny the worse off where they paid only £80 than in England, where they paid considerably over £2,500. He pointed out that in addition they also paid the rates of their workmen's houses, but added that the money loss on rates was nothing as compared with the burden of official interference. He compared the cost of manu- facture forty years ago, when the competition of the foreigner was not regarded as of the slightest importance, with the present day. What economies could be effected if the manufacturer could carry on his busi- ness free from local boards and by-laws, free from sanitary inspectors, [July 1, free from smoke 'inspectors, free from chemical inspectors,- free ftom school 'board inspectors, free from home office inspectors, and factory inspectors--free from the whole brood of officials who, not being pro- ducers themselves, lived on the produce of manufacturing industry and strangled it. The irony of the position was that these very politicians and philanthropists who had imposed all these burdens on them were now asking why they could not compete as they used to do with freer nations. Lord George Hamilton said the explanation was the deficient education of the manufacturers. It never occurred to him to find it in the mischievous activity of legislators, of whom he was a conspicuous ornament. At this. time of day it was useless to ask that this legislation might be repealed, but they might ask that its progress should be stopped. Nor was it too much to ask that it should be taken into account in com- paring their work with that of their competitors, and at least those local bodies who were responsible for so much of the burden should remember it before they placed with the foreigner orders that were required for home consumption. The Newcastle corporation had just bought 1,000 tons of American rails because they were 3d a ton cheaper than those made in the North of England. They effected a saving of £12 10s. on the order, but he asked his hearers if they did not think that a great deal more than this was represented to the British manufacturer by outside interference. He thought the railway companies might consider when they placed orders for locomotives abroad on the score of cheapness how far their rates and charges were responsible for some of the cost in the English manufacturers' locomotives. : He had pointed out what he considered to be the real. dangers to British manufacturing supremacy. Surely it was not much to ask that they should be let alone. At the same time, he did not admit that up to now there was anything to give them cause for anxiety, so great was the energy and industry of the English manufacturer, and so superior the people who worked for him. If the loss of British manufacturing prestige should ever occur it would be due to the comparative freedom enjoyed by the foreigner and to the continually increasing restrictions that were suffered by manufacturers in this country. FAMOUS LIGHT-HOUSES AND LIGHT SHIPS. (From the Boston Herald.) Among other government enterprises Uncle Sam is in the light-house business, and, like everything else that he touches, he has developed it to a remarkable extent, for, when he took over the light-houses from the different states in 1789 their number was only eight. Now he has about the biggest stock in trade of any government in the business. He has a tremendous coast line to light. It figures up 9,959 miles, including the great lakes, exclusive of the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippe rivers, and he maintains more than 2,000 lights and about 4,500 fog signals, buoys, monuments and beacons, which are summed up under the general term of unlighted aids to navigation. The light-house board of the United States, which is charged with the supervision and care of all these, ranks high among the light-house establishments of the world. Probably, in point of practicability, smoothness, of administration and readiness to adapt itself to any emergency which may be presented, it is first among all light- house establishments. Certainly none other has had so many varying problems to meet, for in the planning and erection of light-houses our enormous coast line has presented many different conditions of locality. There are light-houses and light-houses, and the light-house board has had to determine just what kind of light-house would do for each particular point, and in perfectly adapting each structure to its site the light-house board of the United States probably has been obliged to erect more different kinds of light-houses than the establishment of any foreign government. The solid granite structures of the New England coast would never do for the submerged coral reefs of Florida or for the jetties of the Mississippi; nor, on the other hand, would a lantern hung by a nail from a tree, which actually constituted for many years one of the lights of the Mississippi river. suffice for the precipitous cliffs of the Pacific. In fact, in order to thoroughly and systematically light the coast of ocean, gulf, lake and river, our light-house board had to apply an enormous amount of scientific thought in solving many difficult problems. On the coast of Maine is a series of lights built on rock and of native granite. The sites and the material were on hand, like coal and iron in Pennsylvania. These light-houses are extremely beautiful features of the coast. With their gracefully sweeping lines, which, however, do not interfere with the impression of solidity; with the original gray deepened by the stain of numerous storms, the brunt of which they have gallantly sustained, they seem to have grown out of the very rocks on which they rest. Among the most typical of these Maine light-stations are the twin towers on Matinicus rock, far out in the entrance ot Penobscot bay. Rugged though their aspect is, they have been the scene of one of the prettiest love romances in the annals of the service. In 1861 the then keeper, Capt. Burgess, was relieved by Capt. Grant, who brought a son with him as an assistant. Capt. Burgess had a daughter named Abby, who for many years had helped him in the care of the lights, and was perfectly versed in everything pertaining to them. During one winter, when Capt. Burgess had gone over to 'Matinicus island for supplies, a severe storm sprang up, and lasted so long that for several weeks he was unable to get back. His wife was an invalid, and during this trying period Abby, then a mere slip of a girl, not only tended the lights, but looked after the comfort of her invalid mother and several younger brothers and sisters, cheering them up during the stormy days and nights. When Capt. Grant and his son came to the rock Capt. Burgess left his daughter, Abby, there to assist the newcomers awhile and instruct them regarding certain peculiarities of the lights. Perhaps it is not at all strange that the younger Grant proved a very apt pupil, for Miss Abby was a very attractive teacher --so attractive, in fact, that when her pupil had learned to take care of the lights he persuaded her to allow him to take care of her for the rest of her life, a proposition to which she assented. Including the eight years she had already been on the rock and the subsequent period she remained there with her husband, it was her home altogether for twenty-two years. _ The most famous light-house on the American coast is that on Minot's ledge, off Cohasset, on the coast of Massachusetts. It is the American Eddystone, for Minot's ledge light-house rises right out of the sea. The rock which forms its foundation is entirely submerged, and in a northeasterly storm the light-house is absolutely exposed to the full force of the Atlantic ocean. The first light-house which was erected on