fact that the great ship-building industry of the Clyde has of late drawn very large quantities of its material from American steel works. Passing from finished iron and steel to the industries engaged upon those products, there isexcept, perhaps, under two or three heads-evidence that our English engineers have either been passed by their American competitors or are run so close by them that if at any moment they are not able to meet the demands of any particular market, new or old, those rivals step in and establish themselves with, it may be, very dangerous firmness.

We need not suppose, perhaps, that because a certain number of locomotives were ordered from the States a year or two ago by the Midland and Great Northern Railways there is much likelihood of a general substitution of engines of American for those of British make on our leading railways. That does not seem probable, especially in view of the fact that several of the most important of our railway companies have very fine plant for the supply of their own locomotives. But the fact that the great locomotive-making establishments of the States were able to meet an exigency, even if only temporary, on some of our great English systems, afforded at least very strong presumption that in markets where there was no natural preference their rivalry might become very serious indeed. A like remark applies to the success of American tenderers for the construction of the Atbara bridge, and more recently of those needed for the Uganda railway, and also, as is understood, of some required for railways in this country. In the case of electrical machinery-such as motors for tramcars, which are to a very large extent supplied from the United Statesthere were special circumstances not inherent to the conditions of the engineering industry in this country which serve to account for the fact of England's being several years behind in this class of mechanical production. Yet, the great start thus obtained by our engineering rivals, though it may be explicable, is none the less to be regretted, for they are not people of a kind to whom for any reason a start can safely be conceded. In the case of the construction of machine tools there were no outside circumstances to account for the manner in which the American engineers are forging ahead, as is shown by the very large quantity of their singularly ingenious productions to be found in English engineering shops. Our boot and shoe manufacturing industries, we believe, make use to a large extent of

the results of American inventive resource multiplied by American engineers, as also do the more advanced of those engaged in the leather trade in this country. In several of the respects to which allusion has been made the striking developement of American energy and fertility of device is far from being new. But its advance in not a few spheres has been almost a geometrical rate of progression ; and when the whole field which it now covers in its various departments is realised even in the broadest fashion, the fact stands out that England's title as the workshop of the world is ceasing to possess anything like its former accuracy, if it is not even in danger of being lost altogether. Ten years ago it might truly have been said that without the English engineering trade the material civilisation of the world would be completely paralysed. Five years ago such an observation could be made, with some rhetoric indeed, but yet with a very considerable approach to the facts of the case. Now one is inclined to say that, with perhaps two or three important exceptions, and notably those of shipbuilding and the manufacture of textile machinery, the United States by a supreme effort could supply the gap in a year or two.

Into what other spheres of manufacturing production, besides those of which the materials are metals, this capture of primacy will extend it would be rash to conjecture. If there is any industry in regard to which England may be said throughout the past century to have dominated the world's markets not less completely than through the products of her engineering shops, it is that of cotton. We believe that that position of pre-eminence is still maintained in respect of the finer, better designed, and more or less highly finished forms of cotton products. The organisation of the great Lancashire houses, with a view to the consultation and even anticipation of the tastes of customers of every race, in every climate, and of every degree of civilisation, is singularly elaborate and effective. So are their arrangements, both individual and collective, for obtaining immediate information as to any circumstances affecting the markets with which they deal, and especially the intrusion or developement there of any formidable competition. When these facts are borne in mind, together with the permanent advantage enjoyed by Lancashire in respect of the manipulation of cotton through the chronic humidity of her climate, those interested in her great industry may be tempted to cherish a feeling of proud security. And yet,

even in regard to cotton products, there are facts which seem to show that the growth of a serious rivalry in the West is not improbable. Within the last few years there are several distant markets, such as East Africa and Turkey, in which good stout cotton sheetings, 'drills,' and other similar goods of American make, particularly from the mills of the Southern States, have been asserting themselves in unmistakeable fashion as possible supplanters of similar fabrics from Lancashire looms. Not only so, but in Northern China and Manchuria, where we are so justly anxious that an open door' should be preserved for British commerce, cloths of the types we have mentioned from the United States, arriving through a door no wider open to theirs than to ours, are consumed, as we regret to learn on the best authority, in distinctly larger quantities than those of British manufacture. American printed calicoes, too, we understand, run ours pretty closely in the markets of the West Indies and Central America. It is believed, indeed, that this latter competition, which, if genuine and lasting, would be recognised as serious both in itself and in its implications, may not be permanently sustained, since, as is supposed, it represents the dumping' abroad at non-commercial prices of goods manufactured in excess of the requirements of the protected home market. That is very possibly true; and yet the consolatory inference may be precarious. For, on the one hand, the habit of buying from a particular quarter is almost as easily developed in communities as in individuals; and, on the other hand, American power of production at cheap paying rates has shown itself, in so many lines, capable of such immense extension, that it would be rash to assume that the cotton manufacturers of the Southern States or of New England may not discover means of so adjusting their processes as to make existing West Indian prices remunerative to them.

In the metal trades, as was pointed out by the author of the very interesting and able series of articles in the Times' last year, on American Engineering Competition,' the feeling of the great Transatlantic producers seems to be that it is commercially quite worth their while to nurse foreign markets by the supply of goods at no more than cost price, making up their profits out of the domestic consumer. The continuance of this policy depends, no doubt, on the persistence of the present subjection of American consumers as a class. That subjection, however, shows no signs of becoming less marked in the fiscal sphere,

while in that of commerce its steadily growing range and intensity can hardly fail to receive great enhancement from the working of the colossal combine' announced during the last few weeks as having been effected in the iron and steel trade. Its chief architect, Mr. Pierpont Morgan, is represented to have said that this concern alone will be able to 'supply the world, and, with certain economies to be introduced, it will be in a position to compete with foreign 'manufacturers in all markets.'

The question of the extent to which these gigantic anticipations will be realised is one of fascinating, almost of appalling interest, when one reflects on the immense amount of capital which is sunk and the great numbers of workmen who are employed in the iron and steel works of this country. A good deal of information bearing on the subject may be collected from papers mentioned at the head of this article-notably the series of Times' articles, to which reference has already been made, and a graphic description of the resources and methods of the Carnegie works contained in the special Works Management' number of the 'Engineering Magazine,' which was issued in January last, and which, in many of its features, is well deserving of careful perusal by all persons interested in the comparative prospects of the metal industries in Great Britain and the United States. It is not within our present purpose, however, to enter upon any general discussion of the probable developements of American competition, but only to consider some aspects of that subject as involved in and illustrated by a partial comparison of the working people of the two countries.

If the attention of any student had been first attracted to the differences between industrial conditions in Great Britain and the United States by recent discussions of their commercial and manufacturing rivalry, he would undoubtedly have derived the impression that the whole attitude and outlook of the average American workman diverged radically from that of his British rival. Repeatedly we are told that, whereas the British workman, in willing or unwilling deference not indeed to written or printed laws of his union, but to its well-understood policy, steadily stints his work within the limit of the amount which he could easily accomplish without any danger to his health, and particularly applies himself to minimising the production of any machine-tools on which he may be engaged, the American workman is actuated by a totally different temper.

No union rules, we are told, if rules to such an effect exist, avail in the least to check the zeal and energy with which he throws himself into his job. There is hardly any difference of opinion on this point. Opinions vary, within certain limits, as to the causes of a contrast so remarkable, and as to the possibility of producing any approach here to the moral and economic standards described as current among the American working men. But as to the fact of the difference within a certain range there is little, if any, disagreement.

Yet, on the other hand, the most superficial review of the course of industrial events occurring in the United States during the last fifteen or twenty years cannot fail to show that disputes between capital and labour have been quite as varied, quite as bitter, and quite as costly to both sides as any which have taken place in this country, and that they have been much more frequently marked with disorder and bloodshed. M. Levasseur, in his monumental L'Ouvrier Américain,' goes over the dreary story with considerable detail, and comes to the sufficiently melancholy conclusion that while

'la grève est un mal comme la guerre . . . dans l'état actuel de la société, avec ses intérêts individuels et ses passions humaines, on peut dire qu'elle ne cessera pas; il semble même qu'il y est, pour un certain temps au moins, plus de probabilité de voir ce mal s'étendre que de se réduire.' 'La classe ouvrière,' the learned author proceeds, est devenue une puissance, surtout dans les gouvernements démocratiques comme les Etats-Unis. On ne saurait lui dénier un droit ; c'est assez de veiller à ce qu'elle n'empiète pas par des privilèges sur le reste de la société. Elle est plus fortement organisée en associations qu'elle ne l'était naguère, et le nombre comme la force de ces sociétés ira vraisemblablement en augmentant. Elle est assez éclairée par les faits pour savoir que, si la grève coûte cher, il y a des cas où elle réussit, et, comme tous les joueurs, au moment où elle s'engage dans la lutte elle croit à sa chance.'

And well might the American workman be inclined to trust his luck when even the official statistics presented him, as M. Levasseur wrote, with 45 chances in the 100 of success in his strikes as compared with 20 to 25 in France and England; while Mr. Gompers, a well-known labour leader, felt himself justified in stating in 1890 that, of 1,163 strikes authorised by the American Federation of Labour in the previous twelve months, 989 had succeeded, 98 had issued in a compromise, and only 76 had been real failures.

No mistake, therefore, could be greater than to look upon American working men as being in any sense 'masters'