The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-06
London Cable to New York American.

"P tiOn to the United States" says Sir Thomas Lipton,
 wherein I had the opportunity of in
 specting the great American manu-
 factories and of examining in detail the progress of American industry, convinces
 me that the British public has no idea of
 the kind of prosperity the United States is enjoying today. It is no exaggeration
 tu state that at no previous period in
 human history has such prosperity been
 known in any country
 Every one in America is making
 money not only making money, but mak-
 ing it in piles-in such piles that the or
 dipary standards of comfort and luxury are disappearing and are being replaced by new ideals The demand for labor is such that it cannot be supplied, whereby
 work in many places is very much cur- tailed"
 Lipton is particularly impressed by the
 enormous freight traffic of the railways. instancing the Michigan Central, and de- claring that good managers are distract
 ed by the absolute impossibility of han
 ding the traffic. He points out that the
 
 railways have exactly doubled in the last decade, and says: 'This year will see another enormous advance on all that has been achieved in the past. "rThe railways immense prosperity has had an effect on the steel and iron trade
 but even America's gigantic iron output | is so inadequate that she is driven to buy | raw iron abroad. The steel trust alone makes more pig iron than the whole of the works in the United Kingdom. Brit | ish industries are dwarfed in comparison
 with those of this prodigous American
 colossus.
 American steel and iron makers are | fully booked with orders for the next two | years-a state of things which has never been known in England. The cost of l food in Britain is now very high, owing | chiefly to the short shipments from America, and the day is not far distant
 when all the food products of America will be required for American consump- tion.
 | From the north to the south, from | ocean to ocean, 1t is the same," he says. | Tn the cities the evidences of this prosperity may be seen on every hand. New York is being rebuilt utterly re-
 gardless of the expenditure. Mammoth
 buildings, throwing those of London in
 the shade. are going up on every side. It | is the good fortune of the United States that they produce every commodity a man needs or desires.
 Tn gold production they approach the
 Rand very closely. The richest copper mines are in the Rockies. The world s petroleum supplies are largely drawn from the United States; coal is abundant and cheaper than in England the cotton
 industries are advancing so rapidly that the entire southern crop will soon be wanted by American mills
 America can ignore foreign commerce. and the American citizen would not suffer were the United States completely iso-
 lated instead of being surrounded by
 tariff wall, over which no foriegn manufacturer can successfully climb. Rockefeller may be worth, as the Ameri- cans say. e200.OOO,OO0 sterling, but as the average man is growing richer relatively quite as fast as Rockefeller, he is in no burning sense a grievance" Summarizing his impressions, Sir Thom- l as says;
 'It is the more necessary to record these facts because in England even re- sponsible and well-informed writers ap-
 pear to have little idea of what is hap
 pening across the Atlantic. Their view appears to be that Americas prosperity is due merely to financial manipulation. Never was there more ridiculous the ory.
 American prosperity depends upon the immense expansion of solid industries; upon the increasing purchasing power of the people, upon the legitimate develop ment of agriculture and mining industry, which is such that it is prosecuting man.