76 OUR MANUFACTURES GOING ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



OUR MANUFACTURES GOING ABROAD. 



OUR Protective policy has been so long and so comprehensively 

 maintained, that we are beginning to reap some signal advan- 

 tages which are merely the harbingers of what is to come, unless 

 Congress should be so foolish as to stop the effect by discontinuing 

 the cause. Only a few weeks ago the very significant paragraph 

 which follows appeared in a newspaper published in Sheffield, 

 England : 



We have beenTavored by a Sheffield merchant with an inspection of a number of 

 saws made by Henry Disston, which have been sent here as samples. From what 

 we have seen, we think it very desirable that specimens of American workman- 

 ship of this high class should be placed in the Museum at Weston Park, in order 

 that workmen in the saw and edge tool trades may see with their own eyes and 

 handle with their own hands such very tangible and instructing facts iri steel. 

 We have written over and over again, in order to present as vividly as was within 

 our power, THE DANGER THAT SHEFFIELD WORKMEN HAVE TO 

 FACE FROM THE COMPETITION OF OUR NOVELTY-LOVING AND 

 ACUTE COUSINS OF THE NEW WORLD; and a few cases of American 

 manufacture, if even temporarily placed on view, would probably serve to satisfy 

 even the workmen of the saw trade that the policy of dislike to innovation and 

 obstruction to changes involving improvements in production has been a most 

 serious mistake. 



While these admissions are very strong, they omit the very 

 important fact that those saws made by Henry Disston & Sons 



part of the Pennsylvania manufacturers whom the Times reviles 



are offered for sale in the Sheffield market, England, at 15 per 

 cent, less than the prices current there for the same class of steel 

 goods. This competition at their very doors has filled the Shef- 

 field manufacturers with consternation. Even the announcement 

 of the intended consignment created a great stir in manufactur- 

 ing circles. The October (1874) number of The British Trade 

 fmirna/thus heralded the coming event in its " Sheffield report": 



