Smyrna times., 1901-06-26
AMERICA AND GREAT BRITAIN COMPARED.
Interesting Paper Written by Andrew Car.
negie For Nineteeth Century.

negie For Nlneteeth Century.
In the leading article in the Nine |
tee'ath Century Andrew Carnegie es-
says the role of comforter-Job's COM
forter, some will say-to the discour-
aged British manufacturers and finan-
ciers. He tells them to cheer up-
that things are not so bad as they
might be. He admits that the United
States has captured the primacy in
wealth and credit, in manufacturing
mining, weaving and other things,
and that America will have the largest
city in the world by 1915. He ac-
knowledges that Great Britain is get
ting deeper INTO debt while the United
States has the smallest per capita debt
and the best credit in the world. What
of all this? Mr.. Carnegie asks. See
what a ''little giant" Great Britain
still is. 1t is as great as any nation in
the world-except the United States.
Mr.. Carnegie tells the Briton he
must "cease measuring his one coun-
try with the 45 countries of the Amer
ican Union" The only reasonable
comparison, he says, is on the basis of
man for man. The United States, with
nearly double the population of Great
Britain, has only one-fifth more wealth
in the aggregate. Thus the individ-
ual Briton is ahead in the matter of
wealth, though Mr.. Carnegie fails to
mention that the American wealth is
more evenly distributed than that of
Great Britain.
In the matter of iron and steel manu-
factures, in which the British recently
led the world, he comforts them by
telling them their product amounts to
nearly half as much as that of the
United States, and they are ''not much
behind, man for man." He admits
that their foreign shipping is at q
standstill, and that their shipbuilding
industries may soon fall into American
hands, but he says they should take
this philosophically and remember that
they are still as good, man for man, as
anybody else-or would be if they
would wake up.
Undoubtedly Mr.. Carnegie means to
put things in a consoling light for his
British readers, but it is doubtful
whether he has succeeded in dispelling
any great amount of pessimism. His
cautious Scotch optimism amounts
only to this-that British trade i:
standing still and that British indus
tries should no longer expect to affair
the American totals. Lest even thi
should produce too hilarious a degre,
of encouragement Mr.. Carnegie hasten
to warn the English Government tina
it is headed straight for the rocks o
financial disaster unless it abandon
the expansion policy.
He shows that the British Govern
ment is spending $15 year for eacl
| inhabitant, as against S. spent by tn
United States; that its bonds are &c
) ing down, while ours are going up
{ and that its consols may soon be sellin
for 50 instead of SO if it does not speed
lily lay aside ''the aggressive tempe
which alienates other governments an
. peoples, and which has mistaken terr
, torial acquisition for genuine empil
making"
9 Mr.. Carnegie, as a Scotchman b
= birth and an American by life-lon
r adoption, ought to be able to spea
Y with authority upon the industrial al
s commercial activity of both Nation
Is His comparison of the two will be il
rs teresting to readers on both sides
5 the Atlantic, but his reiterated phras
ID 'No cause for pessimism here" seen
le to apply to the United States mo
aptly than to the Nation to which it
addressed.