The estimated product of the ordinary loom per hour is 5 yards of standard sheetings, 48x48; 2.85 yards of drills, and 4.2 yards of print cloths, 64x64. A loom in Alabama, running 72 hours a week, will produce 68.8 more yards of print cloth than a similar loom can be allowed to produce in Massachusetts. If all of the 70,000 looms in Fall River were producing print cloth and running as they run in Alabama, the city's product would increase 4,816,000 yards a week. This gives some idea of the profit that is here sacrificed to humanity and it is well calculated to awaken anxiety as to the future of Fall River's mills. The danger is not great so long as general prosperity continues and the world's consumption of cotton increases; but if a reverse should come, the South and Europe and the Orient can supply the world's markets at prices which would yield them a profit but leave no profit here. LESSONS FROM THESE FACTS. This condition suggests several thoughts: 1. There should be at all times friendly relations and frequent conferences between the representatives of capital and labor in this city. Before any important change is undertaken, a discussion of its pros and cons between both interests will tend to promote its success. When Captain Clark started with the Oregon upon that long and dangerous cruise from San Francisco to Santiago, he took not only the officers but the men into his confidence and thus every sailor was animated by a sense of responsibility. Like them, you in Fall River are in a boat together, and as it is certain that difficulties and dangers are ahead, you must have at all times confidence, coöperation and enthusiasm for the craft you navigate. 2. As the country grows older and richer, there is an increasing demand for finer goods. Since the manfactures of the South and the Orient are chiefly coarse or plain goods, and since most of the cottons which we import are of fancy weaves or knit fabrics, I suggest to your judgment always far better than mine-if it will not be well to extend the policy already entered upon, of increasing the variety of your products. To be sure, there is increasing competition in this comparatively new field, but it is less liable to compel you to lower your standard of civilization for labor than is the new competition with people who are not so far advanced in the world's progress, and it can be better regulated by the tariff. 3. And finally, every man should keep well informed as to the expanding and changing character of industries and commerce, and regardless of party lines formed of party lines formed upon old issues, should sustain the policy which he thinks will promote local and national prosperity. I believe in treating all nations well, but this nation is our particular care. We may plan ever so well as individuals and work ever so harmoniously as denizens of a city, but unless the national policy hensive report ever issued by any large industrial corporation. It is a vindica tion of those who have contended for publicity is entirely practicable. When the corporation was being formed there was much speculation as to what the profits of the syndicate would be. No information was made public which would enable conclusions to be drawn, as the terms on which the Carnegie Company was being acquired were not known. Now we learn, however, that the syndicate had 649,987 shares of preferred and 649,988 shares of common stock, which constituted its profit after paying the required $25,000,000 into the treasury and paying also $3,000,000 syndicate expenses. Assuming an average value of 90 for the preferred and 40 for the common, the net profits of the syndicate were $56,500,000. This practically agrees with recent unofficial statements. Such profits were enormous, but not more so than the undertaking itself. The syndicate risked $200,000,000, or four times the amount, in cash. The profits constituted only 4 per cent of the $1,400,000,000 which is practically the capitalization of the corporation, as shown by the balance sheet. No one can consider 4 per cent an excessive after eleven years more of this policy, though fettered as it was for four years, we have surpassed ourselves as we had before surpassed all others, and since the enactment of the Dingley tariff, the manufactures of this country have found more foreign markets than they had found before in the entire existence of the Nation. Never was justification more complete. Never before was labor so well employed, never wealth so great or widely distributed, never the arts of peace so fruitful of universal hap- profit. The underwriters of many compiness, never the United States so respected by all the nations of the world. These are the added trophies that we bring, and every one is a high sanction that, with such modifications as new events may suggest, the same policy shall continue to make and keep the Nation great. THE STEEL CORPORATION'S RE PORT. [Metal World.] Altogether, this first report of the United States Steel Corporation may be considered the fullest and most compre panies have made several times this percentage, and in undertakings which, on account of their smaller size, did not involve even a proportionate amount of risk or skill. The reasonable objection to the manufacture of oleomargarine is that it is a fraudulent thing. In spite of all the laws which have been enacted with respect to it, it is still sold as butter and is largely consumed by persons who presume themselves to be using butter. It is because they wish to deceive the consumer that the oleomargarine men always make their product to imitate butter in every possible detail.—Portland Oregonian. BRITISH FOREIGN TRADE IN 1901. HERE is a story told of a trades TH man who adopted a very simple, and as he considered, very effective method of estimating his yearly gains or losses. On the 31st of December he took down his file of unpaid bills, pressed his hand on them and measured the thickness with his eye. "Yes," he would say, "it is thinner than last year." Then he would look round the shelves of his store. "There is more on them than last year." And so he would enter upon the new year quite contented with the results of the old one. To estimate a nation's commercial prosperity or adversity by merely looking at its trade returns is not a much better principle than that followed by the tradesman. An enormous volume of exports may mean that for some economic reasons a country has been denuding itself of commodities that it could much more beneficially have consumed at home, and which it has perhaps had to sell to pay its debts. Conversely a small import may imply that industry is stagnant, that manufacturers are not in want of their usual supplies of raw material, or that the workers are not getting sufficient food, while an enormous import may mean that things are so brisk that the world has to be scoured for both. Trade figures must consequently be analyzed and this excess there is of course a vast amount of controversy, but as it has been going on for half a century and Great Britain is not ruined yet, it may be taken for granted that it is not as serious as it looks. Then again the net imports for consumption must always be taken at something more than the figures shown, because the value of the re-exports is swollen by freights, merchants' commissions and other charges. The total imports it will be observed show remarkably little variation from the previous year, though it ought to be stated that there was a material gain in them for the first six months which has been more than lost subsequently, and with an occasional exception the tendency is now distinctly downward. But it is rather a favorable feature than otherwise, because it is due principally to a decline in the value of raw materials. Thus the metals imported during the year were valued at only £30,789,000 against £33,195,000 in 1900, and as with the exception of a slight falling off in the weight of copper, there was an all round increase; the figures show a distinct saving, and what is imported is mostly used for home manufacture. The import of pig iron rose from 175,000 tons to 195,000 tons, but the proportion supplied by the United States fell from 94,000 to 35,000 tons, the great source of supply now being the Cape Breton furnaces. Textile raw materials on the other hand were worth £79,401,000 against £77,347,000, but this also represents increased quantity rather than higher prices, which, with the exception of hemp, averaged somewhat less, though the fall was nothing like to the same extent as that experienced in metals. other raw materials, however, including important commodities like timber, hides, and india rubber, show a substantial reduction, value for 1901 being £57,954,000 as compared with £65,079,000, and again price had more to do with the change than bulk. All Thus it will be seen the country paid a good deal less for its materials of manufacture, but this was offset by its extra disbursements for food. Prices here were, on the whole, well maintained, but at least of most articles extra quantity was secured for the extra money. As the population of Great Britain increases, so it wants more to eat, and as the home production does not anything like keep pace with the demand, supplies have to be obtained from over sea. They may decrease one of these days if industrial depression sets in, and want of work prevents any considerable section of the population from getting enough to eat. The value of the food and drink imported last year reached the gigantic total of £220,000,000, an advance of £5,000,000 on 1900. The one remain ing item of imports worth noting is manufactured goods, which for the first time for many years exhibits no appreciable increase, the value being £93,609,000 against £93,225,000. But more of these were certainly obtained for the outlay, as Germany and other continental countries have been dumping a lot of goods on the British markets at bankrupt prices that they were unable to dispose of at home in consequence of the prevailing depression. The export side of the account looks much less satisfactory, the decline being substantial. Nor have we far to go to discover what it arises from, for of the total of £10,693,000, no less than £8,283,000 is due to coal. This would have been still greater but for the eager rush the last few months of the year to clear shipments under contract and so avoid the export duty, and it is to be feared that next year the total of £30,337,000 will sink to very attenuated proportions, as exporters all over the country say they never had fewer orders on their books or fewer enquiries. The tax imposed last year was the most serious blow aimed at British commerce for nearly half a century, and the folly of it will become more generally apparent when the figures of the current year begin to unfold themselves. A more satisfactory item is that for new ships, the value of these completed, for foreigners being £9,159,000 against £8,587,000. But this also is likely to show a serious falling off in 1902, as foreign or ders are now mostly exhausted, and scarcely any new ones are coming in. This applies equally to the home trade, and altogether the outlook for shipbuilding has rarely been so gloomy. It will be indeed surprising if coal and new ships do not make a hole in the next annual export returns of at least £15,000,000. There is a serious falling away both in quantity and value of the exports of iron and steel, but as far as quantity is concerned this is attributable almost entirely to pig iron, which dropped to 839,000 tons as against 1,427,000. Finished iron and steel was well maintained, though values were much smaller owing principally to the lower price of coal and other raw material, and on this account the trade was on the whole more profitable to manufacturers than that of the previous year. Machinery and mill work also fell in value to £17,855,000 from the previous total of £19,620,000 due largely to the same causes. The most noticeable features are the severe decline in textile machinery from £6,214,000 to £4,732,000 and a gain in locomotives from £1,497,000 to £1,950,000, showing that the home pressure on makers being relieved, they are once more asserting themselves in foreign markets. By far the most important export trade is that in cotton manufactures, and here there is ground for a good deal of satisfaction, as the shipments of piece goods largely increased. This is more than ac |