Conservative papers, such as The Telegraph and The Morning Post, have not yet replied to Colonel Harvey, probably because they were better able to appreciate his philosophy while he was Ambassador here, and perhaps also because his thesis is not so very different from what they themselves have been preaching. Of course, a serious answer to the question, "Is England Done?" can no more be given in the negative than in the affirmative sense offhand. If one selects to deal in generalities it must be admitted that most of the counts in Harvey's schedule are well founded so far as fact is concerned.

The Prime Minister's Cautious View

From The New York Times

LONDON, Jan. 27.-Premier Baldwin, in his long-awaited speech at Sunderland tonight, held up America as an example for Great Britain to emulate. "I sometimes wonder," said Mr. Baldwin, "if we've gone to sleep, some of us, in these last six or seven years, while others have been particularly wide awake. I believe we should do well to study and emulate the progress that has been made in the United States of America during that time.

"I would urge employers and trade union leaders to make the point of visiting that country quickly and often just at present, to study their methods, which are proving to be of such success in production, and I venture to think that no trade union leader could do better service to the cause he represents than by investigating closely what the methods are that enable American workmen to enjoy a better standard of living than any working people in the world, to produce more and at the same time to have so much higher wages.

"I venture to think there is much more for us to learn from studying conditions in that country than by spending any amount of money studying conditions in Moscow."

The Premier touched cautiously upon a brighter outlook becoming noticeable within the last few weeks which has aroused unmitigated joy in the hearts of British super-optimists.

"I think there are grounds for what I may call a sober confidence for a moderate optimism," he said. "I always like to understate a case and undoubtedly in some industries an improvement has been helped by the coal subsidy and it is impossible to say at this moment whether that help will have more than temporary effect upon those trades.

...

"The symptoms are more favorable than they have been since the war. The slow process of the funding of debts and the stabilization of currencies, a better spirit than ever has been engendered, is all helping trade."

Summing up, Premier Baldwin said, "I think you will agree with me that the Government has not been idle, nor are we shirking problems because of their difficulties or their unpopularity."

A Famous Economist Disagrees

C. W. Barron in The Wall Street Journal

LONDON.-America's late Ambassador to England, Mr. George Harvey, is more entitled to credit than any other American for the international debt adjustment between Great Britain and the United States.

The British Cabinet was against it with the exception of three members, but Mr. Harvey and Stanley Baldwin secured delay in action and then made their forceful arguments which of course were never in the public press. The result was that the Prime Minister accepted the responsibility and the Cabinet assented to the settlement.

Evidently the arguments which Mr. Harvey combated have had a strong after effect upon his mental vision, but Mr. Harvey should have delved deeper into British finance. You cannot safely take the Englishman at his own depreciated valuation. While France shrugs her shoulders and endeavors to patch or hide her unpleasant problems, John Bull digs his up and puts them in the front yard. Then he sits down with the whole family to discuss and debate and to solve England's burdens, taxes and problems which are always to the front.

England was the great war sufferer. She had most to lose in trade, shipping, coal and manufacturing. But in seven years after the war she has balanced her budget, advanced the pound sterling by 50% to its parity with the United States gold dollar, settled Ireland and thrown over free trade. . . .

The war cost the three big successful Powers each $40,000,000,000 and more later. The United States and Great Britain laid on the taxes and have to date paid a large part of the cost; the United States nearly one-half and Great Britain several billions. France looked to Germany to pay and now must suffer. To use the language of her new Finance Minister-"taxes infernal."

Great Britain borrowed $4,000,000,000 of the United States to help her allies and this is the only debt that can ever trouble her, for it is her only external debt.

England is still English, and the reds and the Russian agitators are now being deported. Those who opposed the coal settlement admit that in view of all the circumstances a coal subsidy was the cheaper way. England's worst troubles are behind her. . . .

No, Mr. Harvey, the trouble is not in England nor in her budget nor in her interest payments nor in her threatened trade decadence. The trouble is still on the Continent of Europe.

Mr. Barron perhaps paints too rosy a picture. Our troubles are not all behind us. The outlook in the coal-mining industry is still very obscure. A large proportion of our workers, male and female, are still suffering from the demoralising effect of war-time wages and working standards, an effect which

in many cases is perpetuated by the "dole." The biggest step towards complete recovery—namely, the realisation by all our workers that "a fair day's work for a fair day's pay" is the only sound basis of living-has still to be taken. But that it will be taken, though not without heartburnings and disillusionments, we firmly believe.-The Glasgow Herald.

The best observers-statesmen and business men-now see some signs of slowly-returning prosperity in many of our industries. Britain is not a "back number." A very effective reply to Mr. Harvey's dismal forecasts— written more in sorrow than in complacent satisfaction-has already come from another (and on this topic better-qualified) American writer, Mr. Barron, the editor of The Wall Street Journal.—The Bristol Times.

Much though his words may be designed to comfort our hearts, we fear Mr. Barron has looked rather at the potentialities of British industry than at its reality. The reality is, at the moment, more in tune with the picture which Mr. Harvey has tried to paint. Whether the potential will ever become the real depends not upon industry but upon finance.

We can tell him further that the problem of Great Britain is not correctly stated in the form of his question: How can a man go broke by writing his own notes, payable only to himself. We are not making notes payable to ourselves, unfortunately; but the producing class of Great Britain is paying interest and taxes to the consuming class. This is a very different matter, because it means loading up industry with a vast burden of debt, which is crushing its productive power.

That is what is placing in the hands of finance, and of finance alone, the power to turn British industrial potentiality into reality. If it fails, or refuses, to do so then Mr. Harvey's case is true.-The London Referee.

For our part, we do not think either Mr. Harvey or Mr. Barron have very much knowledge of what they are talking about. But of the two, we resent much more the optimism of Mr. Barron than the pessimism of Mr. Harvey. -G. K.'s London Weekly.

How England Misrepresents Herself

From The London Sunday Times

Everyone knows or has heard of Mr. George Harvey as a friend of this country and a practical promoter of Anglo-American goodwill. As a publicist with real influence among his fellow-citizens he has consistently striven to portray Great Britain and the British people as they really are. During the war there was no American who worked harder for the Allies than he did. As the Ambassador of the United States in London he was able to contribute powerfully to that Anglo-American understanding he had always championed in print and on the platform. Since his return to the United States he has continued by every means in his power to effect a sympathetic co-operation between the two countries. Great Britain is perhaps the most difficult nation

in the world to understand, but if any man, and especially any American, might fairly claim to know it, Mr. Harvey could. Yet he has just written an article which betrays a surprising inability to get below the deceptive surface of things English. He seems almost to have forgotten, or forgotten at least how to make allowance for, one of the most pertinacious of our national traits. The trait in question is our humorous gift for "grousing." When there are difficulties ahead or around we complain bitterly and loudly that they are insuperable before proceeding to get the better of them. If in that conquering process we make a mistake or receive a set-back we shout it from the housetops in accents of anguish. If we register a gain we take it for granted and say nothing about it. The trick deceived many onlookers during the war, and it seems to have deceived Mr. Harvey in his studies of our economic state and prospects to-day. The picture he draws of our plight is gloomy beyond words. He sets forth in no gloating spirit, but with a profound emotion of commiseration and regret and a real desire to help.

...

It is a most generous thought, but no one will be more delighted than Mr. Harvey to learn that it is mistaken. His well-meant anxiety on our account is superfluous. Like most of his fellow citizens, Mr. Harvey has been listening to what we say about ourselves, and committing the egregious error of taking it at its face value. . . . Mr. Harvey need have no misgivings. We shall meet all our liabilities; we shall pull through.

"Candour and Consolation"

From Punch

Dear Mr. Punch,-I confess to having found considerable difficulty in attuning my spirit to the proper pitch of Christmas merriment in view of the pessimistic pronouncement of Colonel George Harvey, lately the American Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, on the perilous condition of British trade and finance and the improbability of any revival or restoration of our prosperity. The cry of "England is Done" is echoed or only faintly disputed in certain widely circulated English newspapers, though you, Mr. Punch, have been immune from the infection and have refused to allow yourself to be stampeded into national self-disparagement or despair. And, quite apart from your example, I have now been reconverted to optimism by the startling evidence of the compatriots of our sternest critic. England may be decadent and impoverished, but there are still some things that we manage better than in the great Republic.

The Tu quoque method is always undesirable, but here it is not necessary; the critic is answered by the admissions of his own countrymen. America is enormously rich and prosperous, but she "is the most lawless nation on earth.” The homicide rate of the United States is "nine times that of England and Wales. . . . Robbery is thirty-six times as prevalent in New York as it is in London. In Chicago it is one hundred times as prevalent as it is in London."

The financial loss through the operations of criminals in the United States at the lowest estimate three billion dollars per annum-"is practically equivalent to all the expenditure of the Federal Government." That crime "has become an established business" has been officially declared by the City Council of Chicago. "It is centralized, organized, and commercialized. It is as steady a business as the automobile industry."-MODERATE OPTIMIST.

"We have, indeed," proceeded Lord Birkenhead, "grave troubles in the years that have followed the war, and we shall have grave troubles in the years which still lie in front of us, but when I read that a distinguished gentleman and a great friend of this country-where he has many friends: one who was formerly Ambassador of the United States of America in London (Mr. George Harvey)-has recently informed his fellow-citizens that there is much to be said for the view that England is doomed, I will venture to tell him that he may leave us to deal with that risk and to measure its reality. I will tell him that we have gone through graver days in England in our historic past; that our fathers did not lose heart, and neither do their sons and daughters intend to lose heart to-day. And I will remind him also that the reporters of his own country, who are notoriously accurate in all respects—(laughter)— are indebted to the system which, after all, like so many things which are of world-wide occupation, came from England, and they are writing Pitman's shorthand to-day. (Hear, hear.) You young people who are going out into the world go out with bright and confident eyes, realising that, after all, the extent of our difficulties is to some extent determined by the fact that we, after all, had four years of war; that until the United States of America entered the war we financed nearly all our Allies; and that we have an incorrigible habit of paying our debts-(cheers)—which has, unfortunately, not proved contagious. (Laughter.) The London Telegraph.

Mr. Stanley Machin, President of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, proposing the toast of the visitors from Canada, said that we had recently had the advice of a distinguished man oversea, Mr. George Harvey, who pointed out for our good that we were likely to become defaulters, and that we were going to develop into middlemen. Mr. Harvey did not understand British grit or determination. We had never defaulted and we never would default so long as we had health and strength. Anybody who considered this country played out did not know what he was talking about. We were at least doing our fair share of the world's trade. But Mr. Harvey's words were not without use if we looked into them carefully.-The London Telegraph.

The United States and Great Britain must always pull together. There are differences in their commercial methods, but their ideals are in common. Would it not be possible for the United States and Britain, in their efforts to