126 H. J. SKELTON 



of British steel in structural work, where American suppliers 

 claim a limit of phosphorus in their steel of .10, while British 

 masters, in the open hearth acid process, habitually work to a 

 limit of .06. Every engineer knows that the lower phos- 

 phorus gives a better steel, safer in use, and will insist upon 

 having low phosphorus while he can get it. Ordinary Eng- 

 lish steel rail makers have no difficulty in working to a limit 

 of .08 phosphorus. In higher carbon steels, as now used for 

 street and other rails, an English engineer will not accept a 

 margin of 10 tons between the minimum and maximum break- 

 ing strains while he can get closer and better working. The 

 tendency and the practice amongst English engineers is rather 

 to raise the standard of quality than otherwise. Too much 

 has been said, or presumed, as to the inferiority of British iron 

 masters in blast furnace practice. It is true that the output 

 from particular American furnaces, working rich ores, is 

 superior in tonnage to British practice working on ores with a 

 lower content of metallic iron. But figures that have come 

 before me, from time to time, show that in the best practice 

 the yields are good, and that pig iron is constantly being made 

 in England with no higher consumption of coke per ton of pig 

 produced than obtains in best American practice. There is 

 at least one district in England, working on English ore, in 

 which, under normal conditions, structural steel can be pro- 

 duced at as low a cost as any figures at present obtained in 

 America, while if the close contiguity of coal to the Lincoln- 

 shire iron field, which of late seems assured, is taken advantage 

 of, there will be British iron and steel masters capable of hold- 

 ing their own against all comers. 



From time to time politicians in England — usually very 

 unsafe guides in commerical matters — will be found publicly 

 urging British manufacturers to alter their methods of doing 

 business. Consular reports are published pointing out the 

 deficiencies of Britain in certain particulars. AVhen close en- 

 quiry is made into their recommendations their notions are 

 found to be largely based on an idea that Englishmen should 

 lower their average standard of quality and workmanship, or 

 that they should give extended credit to bu}xrs in countries 

 that demonstrated in past years a financial inability to meet 



