AMERICAN PROGRESS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 3410, 18 April 1898, Page 2

AMERICAN PROGRESS.

A mono the great victories of peace "no less renowned than war," the triumph of American industry is perhaps the greatest of modern times, if not of all time. What that triumph means in material results may be gathered from the facts and figures put before a recent meeting of the National Association of American Manufacturers in New York city. At that gathering, which was attended by President McKinley and many other notable Americans, a tale of progress was unfolded which might serve as proof how much stranger than fiction truth is. According to the business men who spoke, the United States has for the past year been almost monopolising the markets of the world in every form of iron and steel, beating therein the European nations which have held those markets for generations and which have raised hundreds of millions of pounds for the exploitation of foreign trade. From being buyers from foreigners,the Americans have become sellers to them. Of tin plate not a pound was made in the Republic seven years ago; last year four-fifths of the tin plates consumed were made there. As late as 1832 the model roller used for calico printing in Lowell could only be obtained from Europe by smuggling it in a lady’s trunk! To-day model, calico and print are well-established home industries. Woollen production has grown from fifty million dollars’ worth fifty years ago to four hundred millions’worth now, and notable among many other productions that have doubled and trebled are silk fabrics and cotton goods. Withal the wage of the American labourer has not decreased. "No labour in the world is so well paid as American labour ” said the President of the Association though ho does not appear to have taken into account the fact that the cost of living in that country is high proportionately with wages. Allowing for that reservation, however, the development of American industry and trade is remarkable, if only as one of the scarce instances of the tide of opportunity being taken at the flood- The United States is a country which, from the moment of its occupation by civilised trading men, was plainly destined for manufacturing, and to challenge, if not beat, all its older competitors in that field. Its extent, its resources and its proximity to the world’s greatest markets were all favourable to the end which is now being gained. It does not follow that because the Republic is exporting so largely it is necessarily prosperous, or rather that its people are. If it was importing as largely ae it is exporting, that would be quite as gratifying, because the people could not buy imported things unless they were producing commodities with which to pay for them. Indeed the ability to,,import which implies ability to pay —ls perhaps the safest index of prosperity, because excessive exportation for competition with the products of poverty-paid labour in other countries may involve damage to the workers, however highly salaried they are nominally j and damage to the mass of labourers inexorably involves disaster to the whole country. Still, as a mere achievement the American experience is very notable. Especially is it so because of the circumstance that an extraordinary genius for inventiveness has flourished in the States. As was said with a good deal of truth at the gathering we have referred to, “ The American sewing machine makes the world’s clothing j the American harvester reaps the grain of the world j the American typewriting machine does the correspondence of the world; the American telegraph flashes round the world the news of the day; and the American telephone brings the merchants of the world within talking distance of each other.”