It is my opinion that some Lifter barrels were sourced in England, but with the transition to top lever hammer guns the source was Belgium. And King was very likely discussing both pattern welded and fluid steel barrels in 1912.
More here
http://docs.google.com/a/damascuskno...YvzD18i3c/edit
Report on Duties on Metals and Manufactures of Metals
By United States Congress. Senate. Committee on Finance, 1912
Testimony regarding the Payne-Aldrich and Dingley Tariff Bills
http://books.google.com/books?id=QDkvAAAAMAAJ
http://books.google.com/books?id=QDk...AJ&pg=PA879&dq
THE TESTIMONY OF W.A. KING REPRESENTING PARKER GUN CO.
Mr. King: I can speak only for our own company in so far as wages go. For instance, on the question of barrels, Mr. Hunter informed your committee that some years ago some of the manufacturers of this country attempted to make barrels. We made some barrels: we built an addition to the factory, put in some up-to-date machinery, and brought some men from Belgium to show our blacksmiths how to do it. We had to pay our blacksmiths not less than 32 cents an hour, up to 40 cents, and we gave it up, because the highest wages paid the Belgian blacksmiths for exactly the same grade of barrel are 11 cents per hour. That is what is paid to the highest-priced man employed.
Senator Smoot: In Belgium?
Mr. King: In Belgium: yes, sir.
That is where all of our barrels are imported from, with the exception of our very high-grade Whipple (probably a typo for Whitworth) steel barrels.