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favoured by external conditions, contrived to survive the difficulties of infancy, and of these the most remarkable was the Steel Trust. The iron industry of the United States was to a not inconsiderable extent favoured by nature; while the easily accessible deposits of Europe had long been exhausted, those in the States Iny ou the surface, and enormous deposits of coal lay even more conveniently at hand than in the older countries. The increase of population and the opening up of the country require an enormous production, but great as that was, the amount of ore actually in sight was more than sufficient to meet all demands for years, or even centuries to come. The prob. lem arose to the ambitious manipulators of the Trust; could they not compete for the market of the world? The report for 1905, as summarised in Engineering, throws some light on the result.
The record for the year was unique. The output of the furnaces (pig iron, &c.) was upwards of ten million tons, as compared with a little over seven and a quarter the previous year, and the steel ingot production was close on twelve million tous, as com- pared with eight and a half the previous The production ", adds the summary, "in practically all departments exceeded vers the remark materially all
records : previous applies to the iron ore, the coal and the coke departments, as well as to the traffic haudled by the transportation lines". The amount of profit earned on this gigantic outturn was $120,000,000 (twenty-four millions ster. ling), or equal to the revenues of any but the eight principle nations of the world. Of necessity for its existence the Steel Trust has all along been a militant organisation, and its enormous revenue, formidable even Amongst independent states, has enabled it
to
take the field against all priva organisations however well equipped.
The management make no concealment with regard to this, and looking at it fro their point of view their reasoning is weli founded. "It is ", says the summary, "the policy of manufacturers to keep the furnaces, mills, and transportation companies in operation to their full capacity whenever practicable. Obviously this is wise. It results in lower cost of production, and therefore influences lower prices generally to the domestic purchaser and it secures continuous employment to the wage earner. For these reasons it is sometimes deemed proper and desirable to sell for export at prices lower than domestic price what would therwise be surplus products. It a contrary policy should be adopted, the general cost of production would be increased, the employees would at times be idle, and balance of trade between foreign countries and this country would be changed to the prejudice of the latter." Now, of course, looking at the affair as a mere matter of business this is all right, and as such we have no cause to call the Trust hard names, but as concerns ourselves and our profits and industries we have an equal right to take care of ourselves.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
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reason
The
[May 29, 1906, charged on British goods on their entrance | This and all other phenomena, he claims, into the States. This is a question, it will are explained by the new theory. be seen, quite independent of the relative Coming to the energy, it is premised merits of Free Trade and Protection. Of the that hent is the only energy-producing benefits of free trade there can be no doubt; | force, in matter, of which we have any but free trade à la mode can be converted knowledge. Heat and light cannot be into the worst form of protection, so bad aa | transmitted save by some atomic medium, to actually bar the manufacture of goods in capable of compression and expansion. England. If it should be in fair trade | H're the universal mother premiss comes in. impossible that we should be able to compete We are asked to picture the sun and all its with our neighbours in any commodity, satellites nt rest, cold and dark, in the then
would
its therial ocean. indicate that
The sun is fired up. manufacture should pass into abler hands; (Being a parson, the author naturally pro- but such is not the present case.
unisus to lead us to the First. Cause in a dearness comparatively of British goods in subsequent volume.) The atmosphere round their own market in comparison with the sun begins to expand; the natural American goods of the same class is solely attack of cold sæther upon hot wether breeds due to a protective tariff making it possible to solar cyclones of a terrible magnitude. - By overcharge consumers in the United States; and by the ponderous orb itself catches the and this enables for quite different ends the momentum from its ætherinl envelope, and manufacture of surplus products, which begins to turn on its axis. One layer of can thus at reduced rates, frequently under the actual cost of production, be shipped to British ports. The occurrence as a rule of this methol of forcing a market has generally been denied by our modern Cobdenists; but the untive acknowledgement | of the Steel Trust shows that it has become a part of its regular business. Experience teaches us that when once an industry has been compelled to leave a country, it requires little short of a miracle to re- introduce it. Yet this is the condition in which we find many of our ouce leading industries.
A NEW THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE.
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ther heting upon another, the envelope grows bigger and bigger, and becomes a ball of etherial matter millions and millions of miles in diameter, revolving upon its axis. Being so gaseous, and the power and solidity being central, the remoter envelope, so to speak, bas a somewhat slower velocity The whole than the whirling nucleus. sphere, nucleus and envelopes, flattens at the poles; and the denser gases naturally make their escape at these points of less resistance, where the envelope is presumably thinner. A funnel-shaped axis is pro-luc ed, round which the moving and harder pressed atmosphere travels. There is a steady flow of cold æther from the circum- ference towards the centre, which circles until sucked in at the furnace mouth. Here we have à buge etherial whirlpool, in which To suggest that the Newtonian theory of the planets float. Neptune, on the outside, the universe is not well founded is an intro-floats round at a slower pace than does the Auction startling enough for any book; and coming as it does between the covers of a little book published at Tokyo, of all places, is apparent presumption may tempt many people to treat it with undeserved contempt. Yet none who read the Rev. JOSEPH COBAND's "New Theory of the Universe", just published, will deny that he has synthesized a very fascinating hypothesis. Experts may be expectel to ter his inven- tion to bi's soon enough; we will try in the short space at our disposal to give an outline of what this decidedly original theory is.
(Daily Press, 24th May.)
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Earth, whose orbit is nearer the solar vortex. This system of concentric currents explains the axial rotations of the floating planets, Now why are these not drawn into the vor ex ? Because, of course, the central æther of this huge whirlpool is denser than the circumferential, and there is a regular gradation of density in the intermediate matter. This density, it is carefully explained, is produced, not by gravita tion", but by the pressure and momentum of the centralward movement. 8 ench planet floats no nearer than the orbit where The author objects right away to the the aetherial density corresponds to its own; drst law of motion, that u body set in motion "just as bodies thrown into the sea flat in will continue to move for ever in a straight the sea-strata in positions corresponding with their densities". So far as astrono ners line, stating that "if the atmosphere sur. rounding the earth is an obstruction to have ascertained, the densities of the various bodies moving through it, eventually over-heavenly bodies, relative to their distances coming their momentum and causing them from the sun, bear this out. The eccentricity to fall to the earth, one cannot see why the of the earth is explained by its struggles to
Known As æther, a matter
substance remain in its current of appropriate density; throughout in erplanetary and interstellar its owu utmosphere growing deu or as it is space, does not in some degree hinner the drawn in, and less douse as it is out, planets in their siderial rotations and cause
in sympathy with the section of solár them to lose their centrifugal force". atmosphere in which it fin is itself. The Regarding this stoppage ns inevitable under density of the earth uucleus does not change the law cited, he advances the proposition perceptibly. Being in the solar envelope, that “a body can acquire motion (velocity) | all the planets naturally follow the sun in
advance More than this; only by means of atomic oscillation through
towards the constellation energy transmitted to the atoms by applied | Hercules. It must not be supposed that force; and a body in motion will coule to the author jumps from point to point as we rest as soon as its atoms cease their vibra have done; we have omitted the dovetailed tions". It is promised that mther, like elleu'ntions and illustrations for the sake everything else, ims energy imparted to and of brevity. For the same reason we must through it atom by atom, the impulse ignore bis very interesting list of subsidiary casing at the point where the molecules considerations, at least for the present. come to rest; and that if so, the term e-n-⠀ One, that tides are pushed by the sun, and trifugal force as applied to planetary motions not pulled by the moon as we understand is a misnomer. Then he says that there is them to be, may be returned to later. one motion of the planets which astrono- iners seem to have left out of their calcu-
from an international and perfectly frieudly point of view it becomes our duty tosee that the interests of our own nationals are not prejudiced by what can't be con- sidered as equal competition. When we come to look closer iuto the financial aspect of the question, it will become evident that this unfair competition, which enables goods of American make to be dumped in the United Kingdom at rates actually in cases below cost price, and always at lower rates than the same identical goods are supplied to the people of America themselves,
lations when fitting solar phenomena with is brought about by the direct support laws-that is, their progress in a line given to the Trust by the high. duties | parallel with the sun's path through space.
its
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The General Commercial Guild of Chángaha propose that as soon as Tis. 1,000,000 have been subscribed, they will begin to build the section of the Canton-Hankow railway from Changsha to Siangtan, a distance of 90 lí.