13 APRIL 1944, Page 8

FACTS ABOUT AMERICA

By D. W. BROGAN N this catalogue of books which are no books—bibha a-biblia —I reckon Court Calendars, Directories . . . the works of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, Beattie, Soame Jenyns and, generally, all those volumes which no gentleman's library should be without.'" It is pretty certain that Charles" Lamb would have classed A Hand- book of the United States of America, Pertinent Information About the United States and the War Effort (Hutchinson, los. 6d.), as a specimen of the biblia a biblia that he detested. But there are tougher souls for whom this mass of information will be nourish- ment and who will have reason to be grateful to the Office of War Information and its Overseas Branch for making it available here. It is true that little has been done to conceal that this is roughage. Grim pages of small and unattractive print may put off the mere idler, the lounger in the flowery fields of statistics and crude, un- processed information, but the reader who is in good training will be very amply rewarded. In short, this is a book which every editorial library should possess, and which by its very factual sobriety does a better job than many more lively impressionistic works have done.

First of all, it makes clear how great have been the changes imposed by the war on the American governmental structure. The old simple division into executive, legislative and judicial branches, the division of the executive into the great Cabinet departments and the independent agencies, the division between the Union and the States,—these classical landmarks are hidden beneath a deep, lush growth of new bodies, under unclassifiable heads, exercising new powers in all kinds of relationship with the old units of government, from harmonious symbiosis to civil war. Much of the permanent growl of discontent from Washington comes from inno- cent and lost wayfarers who hope to find their way through the war capital with the comparative ease of 1939. There was in Wash- ington, two years ago, an information bureau designed to help people like these, and it did help them, but this book, even more effectually than what was alkindly called " Mellett's madhouse," will do the job both for the bold explorer who dares the risks and discomforts of a journey to Washington and the fire-side traveller who simply wants to know what is going on and is content with vicarious experience.

By the very elaboration of "the picture painted in detail by the first section of this book, it is made easier for British stay-at-homes to understand some .of the American irritadon at what, by the national tradition, is superfluous bureaucracy, For many Amen- carts still dream dreams of the days when all men were masters of all political trades and when business was supposed 'to have secrets hidden from the politicians and bureaucrats. They are wrong— how wrong this book, unconsciously perhaps, makes clear. lilt it nevertheless is a source of irritation to a patriotic and indignant citizenry to discover that somehow the bureaucrats stay and grow. It may in time (after this year's elections perhaps) be learned that you can have good and bad bureaucrats, but that you must have bureaucrats—which is a lesson for us, too. Whitehall may be less of a hot-house than Washington, but Whitehall does not publish guides to its own Kew Gardens of new departments and old ones re-done.

But there is a larger and more interesting section in this bock ; the collection of basic facts. We learn a great many things that ought to interest us, even if we do not always come easily to believe that figures prove or even suggest as much as a Chamber of Commerce hand-out suggests. There 'are, taken at random, such figures as 22,500,000 books published, 216,000 degrees conferred by universities and colleges, nearly 4,000,000 college graduates and a yearly average expenditure on elementary and high-schcol nwpi:s of $ros per head. Fifty million visitors entered museums, and 1,250,000 pints of blood had been collected for plasma by the end of 1942. There are 56,000,000 radios (nearly two for each family group) and 6,000 television sets. There were 21 major short- wave stations and 15 more under construction. "Under central- ised control, they direct transmissions to all parts of the world, in nearly 40 languages and dialects." There were 24,250,003 tele- phones, "about half the world's total." .

Basic facts of a more important kind are here, too. We learn of that decisive dividing-line between the adequately watered and semi-arid zones. It runs roughly up 503°, usually simplified into the short-grass and long-grass divide of too'. East are the farm- lands, west are (or should be) the ranches. "For sustenance, each head of cattle needs from 12 to 320 acres of grazing land, depending on the quality of the range. Approximately 263 million acres of grazing land sustain the West's livestock production, an area about five times as large as Great Britain." But more surprising is the limited amount of good farm land available. "There are about 460 million acres of good arable land, of which about 350 million acres were in crops in 1942." And only about 13o,000,000 acres of land were entirely free from erosion—whose chief cause is not the tearing wind, but the pounding, sudden, heavy rain. We are assured that this time everything possible is being done to prevent that reckless ploughing-up of what was really non-arable land that did so much harm in 1917-8. Can it be that there is a lesson for us here?

And, as we contemplate the tide of American production flooding in, we should always remember the great peace-time industry that beat its electric razors into tank parts, its refrigerators into 'panes. "January, 1942, saw the last gaming-machine produced ; February the last passenger automobile ; March, the last piece of metal office- furniture for civilian use. In April, production of civilian trucks, radio-receivers, gramophones, refrigerators, amusement-machines. slot-machines and, vacuum-cleaners halted. In May, production of household washing-machines, automatic ironers, residential coal- - stokers and oil-burners, commercial laundry equipment (except for military use), metal household furniture, safes, vaults, electric roasters, toasters, waffle irons, grills, razors and a dozen smaller items stopped. June saw the last metal casket and burial' vault, the last lawn-mower and commercial dry-cleaning machine for other than military use. In July, production of bed-springs, bicycles and household sewing-machines ended." This is the reverse of Lend- Lease ; it was the turning over of this productive capacity to military uses that was decisive. (It illustrates the American in- flationary problem, too.) This turn-around could not have been achieved but for Pearl Harbour. Hitler may well curse his Japanese ally. He and the Third Reich will be buried in that last metal " casket " which is the coffin of hi' illusions and hopes.