BRITISH FORTITUDE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21118, 27 February 1932, Page 11

BRITISH FORTITUDE.

TIMES OF DEPRESSION.

AMERICAN ADMIRATION. [FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT. ] NEW YORK, Feb. 3. A tribute to British fortitude in these times of depression—the more remarkable as it is presented in the space occupied by its regular Advertisement —is paid by the Hurriman National Bank. This institution has always expressed its admiration for British acts and British ideals. When Rudvard Kipling was gravely ill three vears ago the Uarriman National Bank used the space usually devoted to its advertisement to express to the readers of the New York Times its grave anxiety for Mr. Kipling's condition and its sense of the loss to the whole world his death would mean. "The English," says the bank, "appear to be taking misfortune with greater fortitude than ourselves. They are applying themselves practically to the solution of their problems, which are the same as ours. They are meeting their troubles face to fate. Great Britain has balanced its Budget. Are the English, by sound thinking and hard work, going to beat us to the goal ? Shall wc let them get tha jump on us ?' They will if our spirit ii> gauged correctly by such newspaper advertising headlines as, ' Lazy !Da\s in the Sunshine,' 'This Year of Sports, 1932! "Theodore Roosevelt said that Americans 'make a fetish of words.' Are we not doing that, unthinkingly, unintelligently, in ballyhooing for prosperity in the adjuration to 'maintain the American standard of living,' instead of rolling up our sleeves and getting to work ? "There is no standard _of living. A standard is a fixed and definite measure like the yardstick at' the Greenwich Observatory. Politicians mouth the phrase to their selfish ends, 'Let us maintain the American standard of living!' They speak of- a standard and think of a scale. They know it can not be done. They know that the wages and salaries of the past 10 years cannot be maintained, but they also know that the dollar buys more today than ever before. On this point they keep eloquent silence. "Would that there were a sound, sane, sensible standard of living—good nourishing food, adequate clothing, comfortable housing, healthful relaxation, and so on, not forgetting high moral and spiritual standards. It were a consummation devoutly to be wished that we could all maintain, without penalty, the scale of living we enjoyed before the depiession, which, now, according to authority, is happily on its last legs. The so-called standard of living in the twenties was on the scale of two automobiles instead of one, palatial apartments, luxurious foods, sports and games ad lib the year round.