Evening star., 1901-06-19
CONSECRA RATED TO TRADE.
Americans Have Given Their Minds to
Production of Wealth.

Americans Have Given Their Minds to
Production of Wealth.
From the Saturday Review
We trust that our very welcome guests,
the delegates of the New York chamber of
commerce, have found their visit to Eng
land pleasant. Whether it can prove soou
for them as well, we doubt Certainly, IL
they take back to their country anything
like modest estimate of their own I'M
portance, they must be possessed OF such
humility as the old world has not yet de-
veloped in any of its nations. They would
be great, indeed they would be immense,
but they would not be human. For the
representative of American commerce over
here finds himself the object OF European
alarm English aduIation and universal
envy.-He can but feel himself supremeiy
important. and his Importance is not the
less genuine for being absolutely Sell. made
One can take interest in these Amerl-
can presentatves which the summer
flight from transatlantic shores does not
usually easily excite There is nothing
ennobling in the sight of an American 90
ing Westminster Abbey or edifying in his
criticism of the tenth picture gallery he
has traversed in one day. But get him on
trade, and it is impossible not to feel, we
can hardly say veneration, but certainly
respect, blent with something even of awe.
One looks with keen curiosity on the Amer
lean trader to see what manner or man ne
that has shocked and made to grumble the
whole civilized world. You feel, too, that
there you have the great republic pure and
simple: that is it's reality; that it what it
cares about; there it is itself. Dismiss cul-
ture and tone, freedom. equality and all
such pigments. and get down to a hard
cash transaction and you see the American
al his best. There, in fact he becomes
very great: and it is absolutely absurd to
take him in any other way. The produc-
ton of wealth is the one thing to which
the American people has really given Its
mind. and. circumstances being at the
same time entirely favorable, it has sue
ceeded to its own huge admiration and the
worlds absolute dismay. No other nation
has succeeded to the same extent in the
same time. but no other nation has so en-
tirey given itself over to the making of
wealth as the whole duty of people.
Never has there been people in which the
discrepancy between their performance as
traders and their achievements in every
other capacity has been so great. In that
respect the United States a portent.
They have grown in a manner quite pecu-
liar to themselves. To the ancientS it
would have seemed a monstrous growth,
to the Greeks hideous, to the Romans
ignoble. For you have in America the
strange phenomenon of the best minds
and the best characters Systematically over
long period renouncing what the world
has always regarded as the higher things,
state affairs. arms. art and "contempla-
tion, and pasSionately pursuing the things
men had hitherto looked on as necessities
which most were not so fortunate as to be
able to avoid, but which all would escape
from if they had the opportunity; necessi-
ties not in themselves degrading. yet OBJ
stacles to the highest or, at any rate. the
pleasantest things. That has not been the
American view: their philosophy of life re-
verses the old order.
Whether as a philosophy of life. as ma
tional polty, as the training of individual
character their order is sound and will
bear the test of time is one of the most in
tor MI tnJJ &c
questions the world has yet to
swered 1t would be worth while living to
see it, even at the cost of Tithonus' bur
den. The question cannot be answered
now The immediate result, however. is
very obvious. In the department which
the Americans have chosen to cOnsecrate
themselves they are ousttng every one else.
That is the plain truth, and the continent
is beginning to see it. So does every body
here see it. but because the Americans are
what the Briton calls "Anglo-Saxons.' he
thinks he must not whisper of their hurt
ing him and so lets loose all his voubility
in scolding on the Germans, who in COM
parison are hardly damaging him at all.
This is of course IA purely business
transaction. 1t is as childish to blame or
be angry with the Americans for injuring
us ih trade it is futile to pretend that
they do not. The only sane thing to do is
to acknowledge the fact. and resist them
as well as we can. AT present We do
neither. We arrange our fiscal system en-
tirely in the Americans interest. who very
and deftly conceal their contempt for it
under a cloud of sentimental friendship
which does not open our eyes while I'M
yelled contempt would. But the fiscal mat
ter is far from everything. We have not
taken trade scientifically as have the
Americans, and we do not throw into it the
same energy and concentrate In a sense
We do not take it seriously.
We have left out of account the novel
elements which America, the new portent
in the worlds economy, has introduced into
trade. We forget or tend to forget. or at
any. rate, did forget. that the Americans
as people of extremes have enormously
raised the pressure at which the machinery
of trade works. 1t may be a bad ten
dency. this pushing things to extremes
wesshould say 1t was very bad-but it must
| be taken account Of Inevitably, it is diff
| cult for us to compete with the Americans
| they have great natural advantages and in
| many ways they have had the pull of a
| clean slate. 1t is difficult for a country
| which does not, and We trust never will .
concentrate its whole energies on trade to
| compete as traders with one that allows
| none OF Its energy to go to anything else
| These temporary difficulties One day
| the United States will find itself sinply
| unable to neglect everything but trade or
II it does. it Will cease to be great power
| though doubtless it will always remain the
| great republic
But in the mean time the full force Of
the present American commercial concen-
| tration falls on us. What we have To do
| is by harder work. more scientific method
| fiscal read1ustment and imperial consolida.
tion to prevent the Americans getting 3,
far ahead OF use that We shall be unable
| to make up lost ground, when their nresen,
artificially obtained advantage has brough,
| on them its inevitable nemesis The sever.
lty of American competition, when Its
cause Is inteiligently appreciated, gives nc
ground for panic, but much for thought
| We want to take 1t quietly, with a yer,
clear head.