192 
INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
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competition from the foreigners; hence there has been no attempt 
to levy particularly high duties. The explanation of the difference 
between the two groups is not far to seek. Table cutlery, and more 
especially table knives, are made in great quantities of a single 
pattern. Automatic machinery, interchangeable parts, standard 
patterns, mass production — here the Americans can outstrip 
the foreigners. Pocket knives, on the other hand, are little 
standardized. There is a bewildering variety of patterns; com- 
paratively small numbers of any one can be put on the market. In 
the same class belong carving knives. The Sheffield manufacturer 
of these (a petty producer compared to the American table-knife 
concern) can hold his own in the American market even in face 
of high duties; so can the German “manufacturer,” who is in the 
main a middleman conducting an industry still in the stage of the 
putting-out system. Hence it is that carving knives, like pocket 
knives and unlike table knives, continue to be imported in face of 
high duties. 
The same trend runs thru the American textile industries. The 
textile industries give scope for the special American aptitudes in 
varying degree, the variations depending mainly on the nature of 
the raw materials used. Where the material is homogeneous and 
is adapted to treatment by machinery, the Americans can manu- 
facture to advantage. Where it is uneven and does not lend itself 
readily to rapid and continuous machine operations, they manu- 
facture to less advantage; and then they clamor most loudly for 
protection. Cotton and the cotton industry belong in the former 
class; wool and silk, with their respective manufactures, belong 
in the second. 
[ will not detain the reader with any prolonged account of the 
development of the textile industries or with any consideration 
of the special problems which they present — problems less easy 
of solution on any one line of explanation than is the case with 
agricultural products or iron and steel manufactures. It is well 
known that the cotton manufacture is the oldest and strongest of 
the textiles, and that its main body stands independent of pro-