whether from habit or because they have reasons for not wishing the public to look any deeper." In support of its assertions, the Times endeavors to show that the continued expansion of traffic receipts of American railroads loses much of its apparent significance when the fact is considered that it is not a new thing, but 'had been going on for a long time before the end of 1900'; that the sanguine prediction that, in a very few years, New York would be the monetary center of the world, based upon the theory that the United States was becoming a creditor instead of a debtor nation and was lending money to Europe instead of borrowing, is not being realized; that 'America has gone, for the time being, quite as far in the direction of employing her resources and credit as is safe, and possibly a little farther'; and that "the American public has never recovered from the fright it got in May last, in spite of every endeavor on the part of the leaders of the business world to allay the apprehension created by the panic, and to encourage a belief in the strength of the bond which 'community of interest' was supposed to have established among the able and ambitious men who govern the great business corporations of the United States."
Our Industrial Efficiency Undiminished.
Whatever be the force of these conclusions, they do not necessarily detract from the efficiency of the United States as a competitive force in the world's markets, for they do not in any way affect the advantages peculiar to us as an industrial nation, and if they did, they would be offset by drawbacks such as insufficient supplies of raw material and fuel under which the other manufacturing countries must, in the very nature of things, continue to labor. Moreover, it will probably be a long time before the conservative, slow-moving industrial forces of Europe will adapt themselves to the novel requirements which American ingenuity and enterprise have created. Both labor and capital in Europe would seem to have a long and difficult task ahead of them before they shall have approximated to the economics of production which we have mastered.
Alleged Obstruction by British Labor.
The labor conditions in Great Britain especially appear to be such as to seriously embarrass progress there and to give us a broader margin of opportunity in more quickly and more economically meeting the demands of foreign consumers. In a series of articles entitled 'The Crisis in British Industry,' a writer in the London Times asserts that the English trades-unions have so hedged about the productive forces of the Kingdom as to greatly diminish output and delay the execution of work. "Thirty years ago, our correspondent states, and we believe accurately," says the Times editorially, "a bricklayer
