Mr. Frederick Smith, Manager of the Union Land and Building Company
(limited), recently read a paper on the above subject before the
Manchester Scientific and Mechanical Society. Mr. H. Whiley,
Superintendent of the Manchester Health Department, presided. The
following is the text of the paper, as given in the London
_Ironmonger_. The lecturer said:
A spectator in any of our courts of justice will generally be struck
with the amount of hard swearing which is given to the court, under
the name of evidence. He will find one set of witnesses testifying,
under oath, to one thing, and another set, also under oath, to the
very opposite. Some prove too much, some too little, some are of a
totally negative character, proving nothing, and some are of no
character at all, and therefore are willing to prove anything. To some
extent the same phenomena are to be observed in reference to the
question of foreign competition. On the one hand the manufacturers
hold up to our affrighted vision the picture of our mills stopped, our
machine shops standing empty and idle, our hardware trade slipping
through our fingers, our ships rotting in our own and in foreign
ports, and our greatness as a producing nation for ever passed away.
On the other hand, the journalists who take the labor side of the
question, the trades-union leaders, and a large number of the workmen
themselves, hold that we have little or nothing to fear from our
foreign rivals; that the depression, like those atmospheric ones of
which our American cousins are constantly warning us, will pass away,
and leave us with better times to follow. I will, therefore, as far as
possible, keep out of the region of speculation, give you a few facts,
show you some examples, and leave you to draw your own inferences.
Some two or three years ago ordinary axle pulleys of English make were
difficult to get; the price was scandalously high, and the quality as
scandalously low. Out of a dozen probably four would not turn round
without sticking, and the casting was--well, simply vile. I show you a
sample rather above the average, and the retail price for this
inferior article was 22s. per gross. All at once the Americans deluged
the English market with the pulley which I now show to you, and it
needs no explanation of mine to satisfy the mechanical minds present
of the superiority of the transatlantic article; but when we also bear
in mind that the price of the American was from 25 to 33 per cent less
than the English pulley, you can understand how the builders exulted,
and how the Volscians of the Birmingham district were fluttered. Then,
and not till then, would the English maker condescend to believe that
it was possible to improve upon the wretched things which he had
foisted upon his customers, and he at once commenced to copy the
American pulley. He has not yet succeeded in producing such a
beautiful casting, but I venture to say that he has improved the
quality more in the last eighteen months than in the previous eighteen
years.
Now take the ordinary door furniture. For generations the English
builder and householder has had to be content with the stereotyped,
with all its aggravating propensities. First, the little screw (so
small as to be scarcely perceptible to touch or to sight) shakes loose
from its countersunk depression in the spindle, gets lost, and lets
the knob go adrift; or next, the knob itself, formed of a bit of sheet
brass, turns round on its shank and the door cannot be opened, or the
shank, not having a sufficient bearing on the spindle, works loose,
and the whole thing is out of repair. It is the same thing to-day as
it was when it tormented my grandfather; for, of course, no
improvement could be made until Uncle Sam sent us his cheap, strong,
serviceable, and sensible "Mineral Knob."
The English maker says: "But look at the many devices which we have
invented for door furniture." Granted, and some of them very good, but
none of them so good as this--for the money. Plenty of them well
adapted for extraordinary use, but none of them cheap enough and
strong enough to be placed in competition with this in fitting up the
dwelling of the ordinary Englishman. The spindle and furniture of a
lock is the portion which is liable to and receives the most rough
usage.
I have here an ordinary cheap set of china furniture of English make,
which I dare not drop lest I should break it, but as you see, I dare
throw its Yankee competitor the whole length of this room. The retail
price of this English set is ninepence--the price of the American is
less than sixpence. The English spindle is fitted with the usual
little screw, the knob is loose, the roses are china, and liable to
break with the least strain or blow. The American set, as you see, has
a long shank; the form of the knob is a very oblate spheroid, giving a
good grip and free play for the fingers between the knob and the door.
The rose is japanned iron, and has small studs or teeth projecting on
its inner side effectually preventing it from turning round with the
spindle; the screw is strong, and is tapped through the spindle
itself, insuring both security and perfect steadiness. Several small
washers are supplied with each spindle, enabling the slack to be taken
up perfectly, and at the same time preventing the spindle from
sticking with any ordinary amount of friction.
I will now show you a cheap American rim lock. First, you will notice
that both sides are alike. Next, that by pulling the latch forward it
can be turned half round, and is thereby converted from a right hand
to a left hand, or _vice versa_, in an instant. This is an important
point to a builder, but our lockmakers do not seem to know it. Several
attempts have been made to introduce locks of this kind, but the fancy
prices put upon every article which departs, in ever so slight a
measure, from the antediluvian patterns mostly used, practically
prohibits their adoption. The carcass of the lock is of cast iron; the
casting, like all the small American castings, is simply perfect;
bosses are cast round the follower and keyholes; the box staple is one
piece of metal, neat and strong.
But there is another point, and, to my mind, the most important one.
Whatever opinions may be held as to the relative quality of this lock,
whether it is better or worse than an English one, it is at least an
honest article. It makes no pretensions to be any better than it is.
It does not entrap the unwary purchaser by pretending to be a
first-class article, when at the same time it may be a swindle.
I will now show you an ordinary 6 inch rim-lock of English
manufacture. At a short distance it looks like a superior article; the
follower and keyhole appear as if they were bushed with brass. But let
us take it to pieces, and see what we can find. The follower is a
rough casting, not turned at the bearings, and is in no sense a fit.
The screw holes are not countersunk, but merely punched in; the key is
of the roughest and worst fitting description; the inside is as rough
and cheap as possible; the key is cut so as to deceive the purchaser
into the belief that there are twice as many wards in the lock as is
really the case, and the bushes prove to be thin plates of brass
riveted on, and not bushes at all. In short, the whole article is a
vile fraud, and the maker was a swindler. This is strong language, but
I think you will agree with me when I maintain that it is not stronger
than the circumstances warrant.
But there are still its defects of bad design and useless workmanship.
The lock is of the usual form given to the English rim-lock, that is,
it has a flange which requires to be let into the edge of the door. I
have fixed hundreds of them, and have never yet been able to see a use
for this flange. It is one great obstacle to the general introduction
of a reversible lock; it adds to the labor of fixing without adding to
the security of the door, for if the door is to be forced from the
outside, the box staples give way first; if from the inside, the
unscrewing of the box staple is all that is necessary to give egress;
if the door requires easing, it effectually prevents it being done--in
fact, it is a nuisance, and nothing but a nuisance. But our lockmakers
do not appear to give these things a thought; their doctrine seems to
be, "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be."
Again, notice that the edges of the iron which lie against the door
and the sham bushes are ground bright. Here is labor wasted, for as
soon as the lock is fixed these polished portions are hidden for
ever. Next, take the box staple. As is usual, it is fearfully and
wonderfully made up of sheet iron, square iron, and brass; the outcome
of which is that the showy brass striking piece comes unriveted, the
door comes unfastened, and the tenant's temper comes unhinged. Why, in
the name of common sense, could they not substitute a neat malleable
casting? In our own houses I have long since discarded the ordinary
box staple for draw-back locks, and find it cheaper to buy a cast iron
staple, and throw away the one supplied by the English lockmaker.
Bear in mind that I have shown neither of these locks as samples of
high-class goods, but as samples of the furniture fixed in the houses
of the working and middle classes of this country; and when I tell you
that the American lock, fitted with the mineral furniture, is at least
25 per cent cheaper than the English abortion I have shown to you, you
will begin to realize what our English markets have to fear from the
Americans.
Here is a common, cheap English mortise lock, and you will naturally
ask why the outside of this lock is ground bright, when it is buried
in the door and never seen except it has to be taken out for repairs.
I have asked the same question, and for 20 years have paused for a
reply. This lock is not reversible, the follower is not bushed, and
the inside is rough and cheap. Contrast it with this neat American
lock, and notice again the bosses to receive the wear; notice also
that the bolts are brass; the latch-bolt is, of course, reversible--I
never saw an American lock which was not. The body of the lock is cast
iron; and, seeing that there are no strains upon a mortise lock, it is
quite as good as if it was of wrought iron. There is no unnecessary
grinding, but the iron is japanned, and the japan is as much superior
to the English compound as is the lacquer ware of the Japanese to that
which is executed in Birmingham and palmed upon the ignorant buyer as
Japanese work. In fact, as you can see for yourselves, the English
japan looks almost like gas tar beside the American. This American
lock is a two-lever, and there is no sham about the key, which is made
of some kind of white metal and is small and neat. This lock is only
2½ per cent higher in price than the English.
Before leaving these locks, let me say a word or two upon the
relative wear upon their different portions, and their relative
safety. The English maker appears to ignore the fact that
nineteen-twentieths of the wear of a lock is upon the latch, spindle,
and follower; the amount of actual wear upon the rest of the lock is
comparatively slight. Let any of you consider the number of times you
open and close a door, compared with the times you lock it. Our
drawbacks and large rim locks are used about once a day; the great
bulk of our mortise locks are not used, except as latches, once a
week. One argument used by our manufacturers against the American lock
is that, being made by machinery, there is necessarily a great
duplication of parts, and a consequent lowering of the standard of
security; while their own locks, being made by hand, are not alike,
and therefore cannot be so easily opened.
Let any of you put this argument to proof, by trying how many front
doors you can open with one key in a row of workmen's dwellings such
as are found in Manchester, ranging up to £25 rentals, and the result
will astonish you. If our own manufacturers made their locks
sufficiently well to give this security, there would be some force in
what they say; but so far as security is concerned, they might as well
make their locks by machinery as make them in the way they do.
I now show you two thumb latches, one of American and one of English
make. Notice the general finish of the American latch; the shape, the
mode of construction, and everything about it proves that brains were
used when it was designed and made. The English "Norfolk latch," on
the other hand, is ill designed, uncomfortable in hand, clumsily
finished, the japan hangs about it in lumps, the latch is clumsy, the
catch is clumsier, and the keeper, a rough piece of hoop iron, seems
as if designed to "keep" the latch from doing its duty. In this case
the American latch is 25 per cent cheaper than the English one; and
the English latch is of the same pattern as the one that was in use
when I was a boy, only that it is a greatly inferior article.
I will now introduce you to the well known nuisance which we have been
accustomed to use for fastening our cupboard doors--the cupboard
turn--and without further comment, ask you to compare it with this
neat and simple latch of American make, costing about 5 per cent more,
twice as efficacious, and five times as durable. In this case no
improvement has been made in the English fastener. It is just as it
was when I went to the trade, about 28 years ago, and although many
attempts have been made to improve it they have added so much to its
cost as to prevent the improved articles from coming into general use.
The difference between the English and American inventor and designer
seems to consist in this--that while an Englishman devotes all his
energies to the improvement of an existing shape, the American throws
the old article under his bench and commences _de novo_.
I think I have made out a case against the English hardware
manufacturer, but when I have pointed these matters out to merchants
and ironmongers, I have been met with various reasons for this
manifest inferiority. I do not know how far these excuses may be
valid, but one man says that the reason, as regards locks, is somewhat
as follows: The locksmiths of the district wherein they are made in
many cases work at their own homes; one man making one part of a lock,
while other men make other parts. This goes on generation after
generation, and the men become mere machines, not knowing how the
entire lock is constructed, and not caring to know. Another attributes
it to the influence of the trades-unions, and says that if a
manufacturer wants a different kind of lock, the price for the work is
immediately put higher, even though the actual labor may not be
increased. A third says it is due to the drunkenness of the hands, and
their consequent poverty and physical and social demoralization, which
prevents them from rising to such an intellectual level as will enable
them to see the evils of their system, and adopt the right means to
remove them. A fourth boldly says, "We make these goods because our
customers want them." How far the reasons assigned by the first three
are correct I am unable to say, but for the fourth, the extent to
which the builders of England have patronized the Americans is a
complete answer.
This defense, "Our customers want them," is as old as the hills, and
has been used to cover every kind of deception and inferior article
ever manufactured. Our Lancashire manufacturers use it when they are
charged with sending china clay and mildew (and call it calico) for
the mild Hindoo and the Heathen Chinee to dress themselves in. Our
butter merchants use it when they make up grease and call it butter;
and our hardware merchants use it when they send us sham locks, and
call them brass bushed, etc.
It is the duty of the manufacturer to invent for his customers, and it
is preposterous to say that the builder would prefer that embodiment
of fraud--the English rim-lock, which I showed to you--to the American
lock, which, at any rate, was an honest article, especially when the
latter had the great advantage of being considerably cheaper. I am
afraid that the swindling and greed of our merchants is having the
effect of thrusting us out of the markets of the world, including our
home markets; and when it is too late, these men who are making the
name of English goods a byword and a reproach, even among the Hindoos,
the Chinese, and the untutored savages of the South Sea Islands, will
find that "honesty is the best policy."
We have been accustomed to hear a deal of buncombe talked about the
honesty of the Englishman, and the want of honesty of the Yankee;
about the enterprise of our manufacturers and the skill of our
workmen; but if what I have shown to you is to be taken as a specimen,
it is time we set our house in order. Since commencing the paper I
have read the discussion between Messrs. Chubb and Hill, and am at a
loss to know why Messrs. Chubb entered into the arena. If all the
English makers tried to reach Chubb's standard we should keep our
markets, at least so far as high quality is concerned; and to see
Messrs. Chubb acting as champions of the English lockmakers is
something like seeing Messrs. Horrocks taking up the cudgels for those
people who manufacture china clay and call it calico, the proportion
of fiber in the material being just a little greater than that found
in hair mortar.
In conclusion, I wish it to be understood that I bring these facts
before you in no exultant spirit. I am an Englishman, and the future
welfare of myself and my children depends very much upon the future of
English manufactures; but we cannot be blind to the fact that the
apathy and conservatism of our manufacturers, the greed of our
Merchants, and the ignorance and drunkenness of our workmen, are
weighing us so heavily in the race for trade that a member of our own
family, whose leading business should be to produce food for us, is
outstripping us with the greatest ease. Our boasted supremacy as a
manufacturing people is leaving us, and leaving us under such
humiliating circumstances--and if the men of Birmingham and the
district are content to dwell in their present "fools' paradise," it
is the duty of every lover of his country to speak as plainly as
possible to them.
Of course I am prepared to be told that as I am not a lockmaker my
opinion is worthless; but I have been about 28 years as man and boy,
employer and workman, in the building trade, and if I have not got to
know something about builders' hardware during that period, I have
made but a poor use of my time. I do not know if I have added to your
stock of knowledge, but deeming the subject an important one, I have
done the best I could in the time at my disposal.
In the discussion which followed the opinion of the members present
was unanimously in favor of the American articles shown to them.
* * * * *
A high Indian official reports that the people of Cashmere are dying
of famine like flies, and at the present rate of mortality the
province will be nearly depopulated by the end of the year.
* * * * *