"ECLIPSE OF EMPIRE."

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 238, 29 December 1916, Page 6 (Supplement)

"ECLIPSE OF EMPIRE."

A BOOK TO BUY TO-DAY

Eclipse or Empire. By H. B. Gray an IS. Turner. Nisbet.

(From thes London Daily Mail.)

This invaluable l>ook gives in the smallest possible compass facts which prove, in the authors' opinion, the need for a complete change in British methods.

It starts with the statement, which will be accepted by all who have studied the question, that the industrial and agricultural supremacy on which Great Britain once prided herself had lieen lost before the war. Before 1914 our country had ceased to lie the workshop of the world. A remarkable list ii appended of the principal modern inventions and developments in trade, industry, and science, which shows that, despite the incontestable abundance of brain-power in Great Britain; she had fallen woefully behind the United States and Germany in its application to the needs of life. The authors have no doubt that this war marks the greatest revolution in human history. The upheaval of the French Revolution was as nothing compared with the cataclysm that German ambition has brought. Great Britain's existence before the war, as it is pictured by these writers—both of high authority in the subjects with which they deal—was as that of one of those large insects which a particular kind of wasp paralyses by its sting and places, inert but living, in its nest to serve as food for its grubs. German influence in this country numbed every effort at real reform. German industry outside this country, stimulated by j* great national system of trade organisation, was rapidly destroying British vitality. A few more years and Great Britain would have been devoured, lethargic an dinert. The war has brought a great awakening everywhere except among the politicians. The question now before the country is whether the nation shall adapt itself to the new condition which the war has created, or whether it shall return to slumber and to the old ways which mean not merely eclipse but something worse—certain and speedy ruin. By self-transformation alone can Great Britain retain the new greatness which her sons are winning for her on the battlefield. And the one real hope that this transformation will be carried out energetically and sincerely lies in the soldiers 'and sailors' votes. Great Britain's lighting men, after saving their country from the open foe without, will have to save her from the secret foe within—to have her from her worst self.

ASTOUNDING FIGURED. Among the gravest dangers of the past has been the restriction of output owing to the chaotic battle between the trade unions and the employers, in which botli classes lost sight of the claims of patriotism. "In spite of the fact that some millions of men are on active service. . . the startling fact has been made plain that the country as a whole has a bigger aggregate output than ever. America and Germany have during the last quarter of iai century been working at the very end of their tether. Great Britain has put forth only a tithe of her strength." That is the explanation of certain astonishing figures which are given in the curiously named "glossary." They prove thai, in a large number of important trades the value of the output per worker was from half to one-third or even less the valeu of the output in the United States. Each operative in the British boot trade, for example, produced only £l7l of goods par annum, whereas in the United States the output was £516 per head; in the dyeing and finishing of textiles —once typically British * industries—the British output was £lB4 per head, the United States' output £379. Low production makes low wages inevitable, for a man cannot receive more than he produces and the cost of Taw material, machinery, management, taxes, and rent has t.i bo deducted from the output. It is eften alleged that want of machinery or up-to-date mahcinery is the cause of British unproductiveness. But tliat cannot explain why the yearly production of coal per miner should nave decreased in the United Kingdom in the last 25 years (.from 312 to 260 tons) when it has increased in tho United States (from 4"00~to 660 tons) and the Dominions, nor why the cost of its output should have doubled in the United Kingdom (1886. 4s 10d.,; 1912, 9s Old), while it has fallen slightly in the United States and the Dominions. It is notorious that the best machinery lias been introduced in many of our modern pits, but the output still falls because the miner wishes to keep down the quantity and keep up the price. There must be a complete change of feeling if the best machinery is to do its work well, if the output is to rise, and if this country is successfully to compete with its rivals. Tho introduction of machinery in the past has depended on numerous factors which are often overlooked —the price of labour (for in the match trade it does not pay to use box-making machinery against cheap home and and labour), the possibility of finding employment for workers dislodged (without which there will ho certain hostility on the part of the trade unions), the unwillingness of labour to use the machines to their full power (labour before the war prevented the olnloynent of the oxy-acetylene blast in ship repairs ) and the extent of the market, as for instance, in the pencil trade, whore good machinery could not be introduced because there was not enough work for it to Jo, as the British market, was suppl'cd from Germany. The (!ornian pom i! m ij»ing linns Inul a large home trade Nocured to thorn by their Government and could eanv all before them in (ireat loitaiii The Hritish makers bad no vile market a nd were shut out of (ioiuianv

KN'OWI.KIHJK AM) WILL. wltii'h lim,' Iw.-ti l>uill u|« tn (:.•••«• -itiv

and Austria with State aid, while in £i ? uu A ry o they ha7e d*conragod by the State or even destroyed. The production or beet sugar is an example. In 1839 it was beginning to develop here when one of our cnief political economists wrote thus regard ? g * \ t: i L Sou ? d P 01 "* wou,d to dictate that the precedent established n the case of tobacco should be followed in this case, and the beet root sugar manufacture should be abolished -by law. The advice was taken. Beet-sugar manufacture was stamped out as tobacco-growing had been; and to-day Eclipse or Empire" laments that Germany and Austria have piled up enormous weafth in providing us with snmr which we could easily have supplied for ourselves." As in foreign policy, as in war a« in every department of life the secret ohncoeu lies in wedding knowledge with will m our British organisation. Our party politics have culminated in a system under which muto pnthout special knowledge and experience nave been placed in charge of vast departments which dmand expert control mS h ".T knowledge there must bo great changes in English eduGrav with his experience at BradfieJd, has here much useful advice to give. He warns the nation angrast the "soft t<ptSons"-or Msy subjects—which have caused so much mischief in the United States He is not swept off his feet by the old twaddle regarding the mischief of a clasical education-seeing that in Germany tho classics are still supreme. But he urges the importance of teaching modem languages. Russian, for example, with its six aspects, seems to offer a mental gymnastic which is the equal of Greek, and like Greek opens the door w a noble literature. He is also for modern history, a subject so dismallv neglected, and for a fuller teaching of what is known as science. t On one important point the book is » error. In the section devoted to airmanship, the credit of achieving mechanical flight is given to Lilienthal! His claim is a piece of German bluff seeing that he only conducted gliding experiments which were mostly fruitless The true honour belongs to the brothers Wright, who calculated the theoretical conditions, designed their aeroplane, made it themselves, and risked their own lives in tfea trial Of that supreme glory nothing can ever deprive them. H. W. WILSON.