NATIONAL IDEALS IN IRON TRADE 127 



their engagements at due date. Every man who has had 

 practical contact with workmen or manufacturers knows how 

 difficult it is to obtain from individual workers, or from an 

 individual manufacturer, at one and the same time the best 

 goods and the cheapest possible goods. In vain is it for those 

 unfamiliar with details, or not in practical contact with manu- 

 facturing, to urge those who are engaged in producing to 

 imitate their rivals or to embark on a trade in inferior goods. 

 In practice manufacturers somehow get sorted out into grades 

 suitable for particular markets, according to the nature and 

 quality of their products. But England is now beginning to 

 recognize that if she wants to keep and to extend her trade in 

 British manufactures, she must find some means of diminish- 

 ing the disparity in cost between her own products and similar 

 manufactures of other nations. The English people are a 

 watchful nation, whether in the small matters of domestic life 

 or in the small economies of manufacturing life. England has 

 been wasteful in not having developed her splendid possi- 

 bilities by systematically educating and training her people. 

 The commercial success which has been gained by scientific 

 application and method in Germany, and the mechanical in- 

 genuity of America, are the factors that are showing her how 

 to economize in her methods and to cheapen her products. 



So far as figures go, America will doubtless remain for 

 some years to come the largest producer of iron and steel. But 

 something more than quantity and cheapness of product is 

 required, and that is, that these things shall be obtained with 

 a general well being on the part of the workers engaged. 

 Amongst other things to the credit of America, let it l^e said 

 that her mechanical genius and industrial courage are making 

 Em-ope miderstand that there is a dignity attaching to human 

 labor, that man is worth something better than to act as a 

 beast of burden, and where muscular devices can be employed 

 to dispense with the use of mere muscular energy, such aids 

 fit men for higher and nobler purposes, happier and more use- 

 ful lives. 



The future of European iron, steel, and engineering pro- 

 ductions depends largely upon the ability to ensure continuous 

 cheap supplies of suitable raw materials. America will doubt- 



