A New York telegram of Thursday gives a curious quo-
tation from the National Provisioner—an American trade journal—in rega.;d to the manufacture of tin-plate. It appears that, owing to want of skill on the part of the American work- men, the attempt to set up tin-plate manufactories in the States is a failure :—" The reason why we do not make tin-plate in this country is plain. We might as well ask why we do not make Bohemian glassware and French porcelain. It is because it takes
skilled labour The American workman is clever, and learns quickly, but we have it on good authority that the per- centage of unsuitable tin-sheets received from the two American factories able to turn out any at all is so large that they cannot be worked at a profit. The manufacturers can- not account for the difficulty further- than that the terne mixture does not adhere to the sheets of tin, but runs off like quicksilver from certain parts of the sheet, making it unfit for use." The facts here disclosed show that England pos- sesses commercial resources in the hereditary skill of her workmen hitherto hardly calculated on. We fancy that a good many of the so-called mechanical processes are in reality as dependent on personal skill as the old handicrafts.
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