believe, fail to exercise a beneficial influence over the taste, skill, and industry of the United States.

The attention of the Commission was of course chiefly confined to the contributions of the Americans themselves, and in certain departments the industry of the various States was fairly represented, whilst in others there was a deficiency much to be regretted, more especially in the section of Raw Materials. But, when it is considered that the space assigned to the United States amounted but to one-third part of the whole building, and that this space does not greatly exceed that originally assigned to the contributions from America in the Great Exhibition of 1851, the impossibility of illustrating the industrial resources of so extended a territory as that now comprised within the limits of the Federal Union, becomes self-evident. There can be little doubt, then, that in nearly all essential points the Exhibition will prove to the intelligent and industrious artisans and enterprising manufacturers of America, much more of an instructor in what has to be done, than an expositor of what has been done by them, for the latter can be alone fairly judged of in the manufactories.

Intelligent, from the practical influence of that early education which is alike afforded to all, and indeed made almost imperative on all, either by an enlightened public opinion or legal enactment,-ingenious, industrious, energetic, and painstaking as the producing classes of so busy a community must necessarily be, where popular education is made subservient alike to individual intelligence and natural aptitude for manufactures, with a ready appreciation of all really useful inventions and improvements, great original power, and immense activity,-it will be wonderful indeed if out of such a display of European art and science, skill and industry, the people of the United States do not gain in no ordinary degree a large amount of valuable information, and thus receive a great stimulant to their already well-established manufacturing systems, and valuable hints towards the commencement of others.

We have in conclusion to state that the special reports undertaken, as already stated, by the individual members of the Commission, to whom the examination of the respective departments was assigned, are now in a forward state of preparation, and that they will be submitted to your Lordship at as early a date as their completion will permit.

NEW YORK INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.

General Report.

Presented to the House of Commons by command of
Her Majesty, in pursuance of their Address of
February 6, 1854.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SON.

NEW YORK INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.

SPECIAL REPORT

OF

MR. GEORGE WALLIS.

Presented to the House of Commons by Command of Her Majesty, in pursuance of their Address of February 6, 1854.

[ 1717]

[74]

LONDON:

PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SON,

RETURN to an Address of the Honourable the House of Commons, dated February 6, 1854;

for

"Copies of the Reports made to the Foreign Office, or to any other Depart-
ment, by the Commissioners appointed to attend the Exhibition of
Industry in the City of New York."

I HAVE now the honour, as one of the Commissioners appointed to visit,
during the summer of this year, the Industrial Exhibition at New York, and
the various seats of manufacture in the United States of America, to submit
my report on those departments of manufacturing industry, the examination
of which was confided to me.

In thus reporting upon the growth and present development of those Introduction.
branches of manufactures to which my attention was specially directed, I have
thought it advisable rather to treat of them in their broader features, as
shown in the localities in which they are carried on, than in their individual
manifestations as displayed in the Exhibition at New York. The classification
there adopted has, however, been preserved, since it is identical, in all essential
points, with that of the Great Exhibition of 1851, to which attention was
directed in the instructions given to the Commission.

Avoiding individual criticism as much as the proper illustration of the
present position of American industry would permit, I have sought rather to
test the results of transatlantic skill by its own aims, and the peculiar require-
ments of a people whose wants it is its honourable ambition to supply, than to
institute unfair comparisons, which could only lead to conclusions of no
practical value. For it could not be reasonably expected that any great
amount of originality would be the result of the first efforts of a people,
however ingenious, whose experience in many of those branches of manufacture
which in Europe have claimed the exclusive attention of skilled artizans for
ages, does not date so far back as a single generation.

Manufactures, as a result, must, however, be carefully separated from
machinery, as a means; since, in the latter, originality of conception, construc
tion, and application is one of the most remarkable features in the progress of
industry in the United States, but this Report deals with manufactures only