YANKEE AND BRITON

Southland Times, Issue 19653, 2 October 1922, Page 6

YANKEE AND BRITON

BUSINESS HABITS COMPARED. THE WOOL FEVER. (By Lord Leverhulme in the Westminster Gazette). Anyone visiting the United States must be struck with the great difference in English and American habits, and the difference is generally, but not always, in favour of the American. In the first place, they are earlier risers in the morning. Next to right thinking, one must give first place in importance to early rising as a habit. Toe .Americans never were heavy alcohol drinkers, and today they drink less alcohol than ever. The Americans are keener workers, “as a habit,’’ than are we British. It is true that one could offset these American advantages with points in our British character wherein we greatly excel the American; but we are dealing with habits and not national character, so we will for the moment omit setting out a list of strong points in our British character. In any case, we never gain by parading our strong points, but we always gain by giving fullest thought and attention to correcting our weaknesses. If one has to leave by an early train from New York, one finds breakfast in full swing at 7, and a good breakfast readily served at 6 o’clock in the dining-room. In London few hotel breakfast rooms are open before 8 in the morning, and any breakfast earlier than that hour is a bedroom affair left to the night waiter. If you wish to get shaved in New York, you can get shaved ax 6 a.m. easily and without previous arrangement. In England the barber’s shop will be supposed to be open at 7.30, and the barber not there till eight. these hotels and barbers in New York and London, remember, are catering for their clients. But

we British are not early risers; the Americans are; and that is all we can say about the matter. THE HABIT OF WORK. Long before the United States adopted prohibition, when one visited the United States, it was the exception and not the rule, to see guests in an American hotel taking wine or other form of alcohol at lunch or dinner. Jn the United Kingdom it was, and is, the exception to ree guests at the hotel table who are nor taking wine, beer, or whisky at lunch and dinner. America has got, in a supreme degree, the habit of work—that great and good habit which is the foundation of prosperity and happiness, national and individual In Great Britain, if a young man has “expectations” of inherited wealth, he not only does not apply himself to acquire the habit of wealth, but he will never be given the chance to acquire it by parent* or college masters. We have often seen in the United Kingdom most promising young men absolutely spoiled by a small inheritance of a mere £lOOO a year. One could ■ n-a-xnee any number of American young men to whom prospects of inherited wealth, running into incomes of one or more millions of dollars a year, have not blunted tbeu desire for the habit of work. BAD HABITS FATAL. The United States bolds to-day, in the coffers of her bankers, more than threefourths of the world's gold, and this fact alarms us; but really that fact is not our danger for the future, but that American habit?--of- early rising. hard work, and abstinence from alcohol are superior to our own. These habits are their real gold reserve. I have never known a person with bad habits of any kind, harmless, or the reverse, that had any practical common sense. I have been reading a book, ‘The Foundation of Japan,” toy Mr RobertsonScott, and was astonished to learn the great part the young men and women there are playing in the development of the country. They have formed a society to elevate themselves and the community in the towns in which they live. I am certain there is finer material in England for work of this kind than in Japan. Why should the young men and women here not band together to improve their native land, to make it easier to live a good life and more difficult to be led away into evil—we who have sent missionaries to teach the people of Japan?