248 W. R. LAWSON 



the present dearth of great organizers in England may be that 

 the passion for hard work has, to a large extent, died out. 

 The heroic age of industrial enterprise seems to be past, and 

 Englishmen have settled down to a regime of joint stock old 

 fogeyism. Whatever occult merits the joint stock system 

 may have, rapidity of action can hardly be claimed as one of 

 them. Where all initiative is concentrated in a board of 

 directors, not one of whom may have any technical knowl- 

 edge, movements are sure to be slow. In the United States 

 that obvious drawback is guarded against by having a strong 

 executive distinct from the directorate, and in all technical 

 matters independent of it. The directors are, as a rule, ad- 

 visory only, and the executive power has a free hand. There 

 is consequently scope for organization, and organizers have 

 all the opportunities they need. They are eagerly looked for, 

 and when found they receive every kind of encouragement, 

 from hundred-thousand-dollar salaries to special audiences of 

 the German emperor. 



In comparing the very different rates of speed at which 

 most kinds of engineering work are done in the United States 

 and in Great Britain, it will be found that all the fault is not 

 with the workmen. On our railways, for instance, directors, 

 managers, engineers, and officials of every grade move much 

 more slowly than they would have to do on the other side of 

 the Atlantic. Any one who has an opportunity to see how 

 railway extension is carried out here must be amused at the 

 leisurely character of the proceeding. A spur line of four or 

 five miles, which an American engineer would put through in 

 as many weeks, will easily spread over a season or two on an 

 English railway. A twenty mile stretch will be years old 

 before it has run the gauntlet of directors, select committees, 

 engineers, draughtsmen, and contractors. In these days of 

 international yacht races and polo matches we should like 

 to hear of an American railroad company challenging an 

 English company to a friendly competition in railway build- 

 ing — say fifty miles, to be as near as possible alike in grades, 

 contour, and nature of ground. This would be a most in- 

 structive trial of organizing skill on both sides. The British 

 and the American methods of doing such work would be clearly 



