THE GREAT U.S.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19363, 16 July 1928, Page 15

THE GREAT U.S.

FRANK CRITICISM.

AN AWAKENING COMING.

(PBOJI OU» OWK COHBESPONDEOT.)

SAN FRANCISCO, June 13,

Sir Charles Higham believes that America needs to look at herself searchingly, and he has made himself understood in no backward manner while on a visit to New tfork

Sir Charles, who is one of the world's most prominent advertising specialists,' feels that the United States is living too complacently in the present; is too heedless of what may happen ten years from now, and of what is happening abroad at this very moment. He sees America in danger of becoming the • victim of its own prosperity and of learning that in' some ways it is not nearly so smart as it thinks it is. All of which the noted Britisher points ' out good-naturedly, rather than critically or bitterly. "America lives vividly from day to day. It lives every minute of that day. It is so prosperous that it forgets yesterday and gives no heed for to-morrow," said Sir Charles. "In England we never have been prosperous, and so we live from day to day in hope of something better, with our prayers and efforts directed toward the future and our past too brutally memorable to be soon forgotten. "That's why we are going ahead. That's why we are getting on our feet with amazing rapidity. Our manu-1 facturing plants would surprise you — as they surprised Mr Ford when he was in England recently. We have taken the American pattern. "If our men are getting better wages, and if our labour problems are being solved, it is the American debt that is doing it. It has made us come to life.

"The Britisher is not a go-getter, a hustler. But he is learning how to he. "If you enter the average American business office, with its array of trick offices, you are likely to see the day started with a discussion of Babe Ruth's last home run or last night's prize fight. You won't find that m England.

Striking Incident. Meanwhile, your gold—the greatest supply in the world —lies moulding in your bank vaults.. Your bankers think themselves quite smart. Yet, some time ago a new British enterprise tried to raise twelve millions in America and was turned down. It went to the Bank of England. It got the money at a little better than eight per cent. "The Bank of England then went to the American concern that turned down the industrial project and borrowed the millions' at a little better than three per cent. The British bank is making five per cent, without using a dime of its own money. Now I ask you: 'ls that smart business?' "There has been a great deal of talk about a trade war between England and America. That is too silly for words. To begin with, a trade rival has to be an export rival, and America does not know the export business and is not likely to learn it for a long time. America knows business, but n °t export; England knows export and is just learning business.-'- The~orily ex- I port rival England has in the world is Germany—as'usual. ] "True it is that the Britisher shaves | himself with American cream and uses an American safety razor. But American manufacturers are gaining sufficient insight to build British factories. Thus the British worker is given employment and the articles are turned out as a British product. That is going to be the final solution, of many arguments, in my opinion. "A very pro-British attitude towards home products is being engendered in England, just as you hear of 'the 100 per cent. Americanism here. I have been handling a big fund put up by the Government to publicitise the necessity of buying British goods. It is the only Government that ever took such a step, and it is working. "America is not thinking about such things. Much will have happened ten years hence, when the foreign debts are pretty well paid off and Germany and England are back on their export feet, unless there is an American awakenmg.