Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 60.djvu/538

530 an organized effort to stem the inflow.' At a recent conference in Vienna to take measures against American competition, adds Mr. Hurst, 'it was openly acknowledged that the commercial policy of the present time is dictated and controlled by the United States. . . . Instances of the gigantic strides of our American manufacturing industries are cited to show our capability to forge ahead of all competitors in many fields.'

In a report upon the commerce and industries of Germany, Consul-General Mason, of Berlin, says the United States again heads the list of countries selling to that country, with a total of nearly $343,000,000, or 16.9 per cent, of the entire bulk of German imports, although it should be noted that this covers the values of all American products landed on German soil, 'a large percentage of which simply pass through. . . en route to Russia, Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, and Scandinavia.' It may be expected that later returns will show a falling off in German imports, owing to the recent industrial depression which has seriously impaired the purchasing power of the Empire. But in Germany, as in Austria-Hungary, our goods continue to hold their own, and the 'overshadowing competition of the United States' is regarded by German economists as of grave importance to the future of German industry and commerce. "It is recognized by intelligent Germans," adds Mr. Mason, "that in future industrial and trade competitions, that fine composite product of American racial qualities, institutions, and methods, the workingman who thinks, will, in combination with our unequaled resources, turn the scale in favor of the United States"

The same concern is felt in France, in Belgium, in Switzerland, in Great Britain—in other words, in all of the highly developed manufacturing countries of Europe—and it is a most significant fact that even in specialties which were once thought to be exclusively their own, the United States is becoming a more and more formidable competitor. Who would have imagined a few years ago that we would make such rapid progress in the manufacture of silk that we would soon cease buying silks from France, with the exception of highly finished goods, and would actually be exporting silks to that country? Yet this is what has happened. So of tin plate in Wales. At one time it was doubtful whether we could manufacture tin plate profitably, and it was confidently asserted that the Welsh must always control the