.ON ADMIRING AMERICA .
IHAVE no particular cause to JoveAmericans. When I first set up for myself in: business,' in a little office at the corner of Forty-second Street and Broadway, they parted me from a good many dollars. True, I made as much as £200 in one week, but I lost that and more the next. My final cash balance was a debit one, but exPerieaC was a countervailing asset. "I kiss the rod of my reverseS, for I learned thereby to understand a little of American Methods and ideals.
Here in England I am amazed to find.how unpopular it is to dare . to admire American methods. " I can't read an American paper, with all those beastly advertisements,". says the Retired Major. " The Yankees have no culture, no liberty, no sportsman- Ship "--sci Hampstead calls unto Chelsea: But when English boyS and girls go overseas they find out that these things are not true. WC are sunk 'in lethargy here—that is the first impres- sion of an Englishman returned. Going out to hincheOn I pass a theatre queue daily, listleSs men and women OR camp stoolS, street singers, cadgers. Outside a teashop in Covent Garden are fOur hefty men, three singing, one collecting. pennies. Near-by a beggar offers bootlaces to the passers by. One need not go on. We are used to such scenes, but they are sad and rather disgusting none the less. We cannot be% grea- t modern nation with servility and starvation in our midst.
Thereare also .beggars in America, of course, but fewer, and the' Americans are heartily ashamed of them. In England the idea persists that .we should look after the idle and inefficient, that a place must be found for rela- tions,- that a man must be helped in spite of himSelf. This is not ehristianity—far from it ; it is merely feudalism. Above all, and in spite of all that has been said about our being a nation of shopkeepers, we still persist in thinking business less honourable as a career than letters, medicine, law or even war.
An American friend told me a short time ago that he would like to hear of some new English inventions, par- ticularly in domestic appliances, to market in the United States. Immediately I thought of another friend, who has realized that salesmanship is the most neglected pro- fession in England to-day, and who is now exploiting a patent kettle. Seizing the telephone, I called up the Exhibition where he was working. First the connexion went wrong. Then the operator (probably she was underpaid and underfed, and certainly she was drinking tea at the moment, for I heard her) couldn't understand what I wanted, got the message wrong,. left me in the air. Finally, at a cost of two girl-hours, kettle and capitalist came together next morning. But what wasted effort ! To do business over the telephone in London one ought . to know Mr. John Smith personally and play golf with him twice a month.
Thousandspounds of a day are lost over missed con- nexions. • . . • nexions. Nowhere is our lethargy more .obviOus than at ihe telephone, when one has something to buy or sell. Doing business is made into a bore, instead of being a delight, as it should be. _ How different are the circumstances in America ! Had an -American called up a Domestic Exhibition as follows : " Listen, there's a man here who wants to get in touch with Mr. So-and-so; the inventor of a patent kettle—could you locate him right away? His stall is in the gallery "—would he haVe found his man ? " Sure reply. • them out, allowing only the lower-pitched to reach us. I sometimes think that those half-dead persons whom one may see from the top of a bus, sitting in their clubs, reading the newspapers, are partly responsible, with their die-hardisms and inhibitions, for keeping up a spirit of pessimism in Young England. No doubt they tell their families that the world is going to the dogs. No doubt also they read too much and do too little ; • they batten like slugs on the fodder of Fleet Street, absorbing pars- graphs of print about other men's activities and absurdi- ties and remain immobile. Such people must be a drag on prosperity. True, the same baldpates behind the same plate-glass windows may be seen in Fifth Avenue. But in America nobody pays any attention to them, not at any rate unless and until they have made several million dollars. Here, on the contrary, they are respected and even help to form public opinion. Personally I think a capacity to earn money, whether at the Bar or in business, should be a serious qualification for participation in public affairs, not the only one, of course, but perhaps the chief. It is a coarse test, but where is a better ? The second sine qua non of statesmanship is travel. Here are forty million English on an island that should Only hold twenty million. Under ideal arrangements we could all flourish and even multiply. But can industry be ideally organized, or must mankind always have a wide working margin and great undeveloped spaces ? If so, then we must look overseas. We must win for ourselves more freedom of movement. We must make more wealth. Yet our best brains—or our most expen- sively educated brains at any rate—go to-day chiefly to professions that produce little wealth. I admire America, but I love England. It is sad to see our young people; staying in ruts or getting out of them only to pursue the hare of Communism. There is far more fun to be had out of Capitalism and individual enterprise. I would like to sec English boys paying their way through a University by being waiters-in their spare time—as two American friends of mine did—and more men determined to be millionaires before they die. " But money isn't everything ! " It is so easy to say that and so cheap, so like a faded grandee.
There should be more people making money in England to-day, less men waiting to step into dead men's shoes. We require in England a broadening of horizon for both sexes, a liberation of ambition for young and old ; better organization and more optimism. .
F. C. C. YEATS-BROWN.
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