The extract from the report of the judges in horology, at the Sydney
International Exhibition, with the diagrams showing the comparative
merit of the watches tested, given on other pages of the current issue
of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, cannot fail to interest our readers. There
were ten exhibitors, and the inherent and comparative merits of the
various exhibits were rated under ten heads on the basis of 100 points
"for the highest degree of excellence." There were British, German,
French, Swiss, and American competitors; and while the scores of the
nine European exhibitors footed up totals ranging from 76 to 686,
their average being 389-1/3, the total of the Waltham Watch Company
was 981. In detail this remarkable score stood thus: Originality,
98; invention and discovery, 95; utility and quality of material,
95; skill in workmanship, 93; fitness for purpose intended, 100;
adaptation to public wants, 100; economy, 100; cost, 100; finish and
elegance of cases, 100; timekeeping qualities, 100. Total, 981.
The timekeeping tests were made, as the report points out, by Prof.
H. C. Russell, Astronomer Royal at the Sydney Observatory; and it is
especially noted that while the majority of the watches tested had
been made for exhibition purposes, and specially prepared for that
end, the exhibit of the American company was the ordinary and regular
product of the factory, such as is finished every day. Another
evidence of the superiority of the American system, as emphasized in
the report, is the fact that a sixth grade Waltham watch, one of the
cheapest tested, showed a better performance than many very expensive
and otherwise first class watches of other makes.
The moral of the victory is happily drawn in the following editorial
review of the contest and its lessons, by the Sydney _Morning Herald_
of April 14, last:
"The report of the judges in horology, which we published on Saturday
last, was a document of more than ordinary interest. The slightest
glance at it will show that the judges brought no small amount of
ability and industry to their task. In many other classes of exhibits
judging must, to no small extent, be a matter of opinion. There is
no absolute test by which one photograph, for example, or one oil
painting can be decided to be superior to another. In exhibits of
this kind much must be left to the taste of the critic. Watches and
chronometers, on the other hand, can be submitted to the minutest
tests. The care and trouble which these require are not small, but
the issue is sufficiently important to warrant all the labor which
the judges in horology brought to their work. Time-keepers that can be
relied upon in all weathers and in all climates, and that are within
reach of all classes, are a luxury of no common order, but to a large
number of persons they are a necessity also. In these fast days, when
everything must be done to time, it is for a variety of purposes
found necessary to make accurate divisions, not merely of the days
and hours, but of the minutes and seconds also. The verdict which the
judges in our Exhibition have pronounced on the Waltham watches is
one of which any company might be proud; but the facts on which the
verdict is based are as interesting to the public at large as to the
parties immediately concerned. One of the secrets of American progress
lies first in the invention of machinery, and then in its application
to almost all descriptions of industry. It is the bringing of
machinery to every branch of watchmaking that is enabling Americans to
beat the world in this as well as in many other things.
"There has been a general belief that a machine-made watch is not to
be compared to one that is hand-made, and that on this account the
English watch must always hold its own against the American. This
belief will have to be given up, if it is not given up already. It has
now been established that machinery can be used for the purposes of
watchmaking with quite as much success as for those of agriculture.
The Americans are showing that they can make better watches than
the Swiss or the English, but, what is of equal importance, they
are showing that they can make them for less money. The boast of the
Yankees is that they can turn out work cheaper and better than anybody
else, and that for that reason the world must take their products.
It would be difficult to prove that in some departments the boast is
wholly without foundation. The American mechanic is paid better than
the English mechanic, and yet the work which he turns out can, as a
rule, be sold for less. The reason is, not only that he works harder,
but that the assistance of machinery enables him to produce the
largest result by the smallest amount of labor.
"Mr. Brassey, who believes that the workmen of his own country are
equal if not superior to any in the world, maintains that an English
mechanic can do more work than an American mechanic. The American
really does more, because the inducements to industry are greater, and
because he has better machinery. The success of the Waltham Company
has furnished a striking instance of this. This company has now not
only well-nigh driven foreign watchmaking companies out of America,
but it has shown that it can more than compete with them on their own
ground. This arises partly from the fact that it can turn out the best
work on a large scale, but also from the fact that the principle on
which it operates enables it to do all this economically. The
Waltham Company claims to have arrived at simplicity, uniformity, and
precision in the manufacture of watches, and the report of our judges
shows that its claim is well founded. One of its discoveries was that
a simple instrument, where simplicity is possible, will cost less and
be worth more than a complicated one. Another was that the making
of all instruments of the same grade exactly alike, so that the part
which belongs to one belongs to the whole, will not only facilitate
manufacture, but will greatly economize it. A third was, that
these properties of simplicity and interchangeability are the best
guarantees of perfect exactitude. The success which the Americans have
reached in this as well as in other branches of industry, ought
to excite the gratitude rather than the jealousy of the world. Any
company or nation that shows how a maximum of efficiency can be
reached by a minimum of labor confers a benefit on mankind. This
our American cousins have done in other spheres besides that of
watchmaking. There are branches of the prosperity of the Americans
that are traceable to the extent of their territory and the fertility
of their soil; but the triumph of their machinery has been the result
of their inventiveness and of their enterprise, and for that reason it
points a moral that Australians might profitably observe."
* * * * *