Prospects of British Manufactures.

Evening Star, Issue 7610, 12 May 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

Prospects of British Manufactures.

During the last two or three years some doubt has begun to be entertained in regard to the permanence of the industrial supremacy whioh Britain gained so rapidly. The country has been enduring a commercial depression exceptionally severe and prolonged. At such a time anticipations for the future more gloomy than circumstances actually warrant may be expected to prevail. But after every reasonable deduction has been made for this habit of the human mind under distress, it is impossible to deny that there a*-e aspects of our industrial position well fitted to awaken anxiety with regard to the future. Our industrial eminence is in a great measure the result of certain British inventions, of which we were able to make large use while our neighbors were engrossed by the work of invading other peopWs territory or resisting the invasion of their own. We held for many years a virtual monopoly of the mechanical applianoes essential to industrial greatness. We made a vigorous use of our advantages; our commodities were cheap and good, and the world was satisfied to accept its supplies from us. We assumed it would always be so, and upon this theory we have accumulated on these islands vast aggregates of machinery and of laborers for whom there oould not possibly be found employment if foreign countries should undertake to manufacture for the supply of their own wants. But that is precisely what foreign countries have for many years been endeavoring, with muoh energy and success, to do, A Btrong and growing desire to establish manufactures exists in all civilised countries. No doubt if they suffered British goods to enter freely we oould still hold our own against all competition. But we compete under the absolutely fatal disadvantage of heavy protective duties. For many years America has protected her youthful industries, at incalculable cost, but so effectively that the American manufacturer can now produce many articles—notably the lower grades of cotton cloths—more cheaply than her English rival. Moved to some extent by the success of America, the tendency to protect is becoming stronger on the Continent of Europe; and the field which was formerly open to the manufacturers of Britain becomes, year by year, more circumscribed. Our old outlets are failing us; our hope must rest on the opening of new outlets. Not the least alarming feature in our position is that in America uud France muoh greater thought is given to mechanical improvement than is now the rase in England. The English manufacturer has a disabling confidence in the methods whioh heretofore have led him to success. He rejects novelties, and is unwilling to be bored with experiments. In a world glowing with the love of progress and meohanical improvement, the mechanioal conservation of the English manufacturer is undoubtedly the most perilous form of dry-rot by which our industrial, system can be invaded,—Note in the 'Nineteenth Century' by Robert Mackenzie, pp. 206-7.

Husband, who has a little engagement on hand : " I shall be at the ofßoe vary late tonight, my dear, posting my books, and you had better not sit up for me." Wife : " Very well, John. When lam ready to go to bed, I'll just say good-night to yoa through the telephone." John wishes ha had never had his house connected with hi» office by telephone. The happiest period of man's life is when he has a pretty wife, a beautiful child, more ready cash than he well knows what to do with, a good conscience, and is not is debt,