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.