Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-11-20
ENGLAND NOW
TRANSFORMED
One Year After Armistice
Finds Nation With a
New Outlook

London. Nov. is. - From England $
nfst year of peace, with unrest. it's
J nervous haste back to peace condi-
tions Its feat of fitting three and a
half million soldiers back into indus
try rises this fact
England has become a new Eng
land. The confusion of war has lift
ed.
war to block what labor regarded as
hrst move to restore the old pre-
war wage level and standard of life
the first twelve months of peace have
demonstrated how the nations out
look on life has altered. In Flanders
and France Englishmen of all ranks
and classes unwittingly were made
over in their ways of thinking, their
personal discipline and their capacity
for doing things.
This war has shown their deter
mination to carry these standards in
to their peace time lives. Toward
the end of the war some two million
Americans, in England for varying
periods, helped move things a little
further.
Not until all was over and the pros
pect arose of taking up the old peace
time pursuits did England realize how
much 1t had changed. A large part of
the population decided then they did
not want to go back to the old. So
the reconstruction of the out-grown
pre-war institutions began. This is
the big human story in England's
nrst armistice anniversary.
Business Transformation
Business again is thinking in peace
hgures and in the terms of the new
era upon England. For business
methods have undergone a reforma-
tion since 1914, and even since 1918.
Trusts, developing from the solidi-
inant factor in the British industrial
field since the armistice for the first
time in English history. Compelled
by the war to pool their resources the
big business men found many COM
mon interests.
On the advice of it's trust commit
tee investigating the subject since the
armistice, the Board of Trade this
fall will ask Parliament to pass an
English Sherman antitrust law.
TO labor the period since the ar
mistice has brought: Introduction
into Parliament of an eight-hour day
and a minimum wage bill.
The coal commission, which has al
ready reduced working hours in the
Black Country and slightly increased
commissions recommendation to ma
Gonalize mines).
A Board OF Trade survey in Octo-
ber disclosed that:
Nearly all Englands industrial
plants have completed their reorgan-
iZation for peace. Pre-war sewing
machine mills, a year ago turning out
guns and shells. have become sewing
machine factories again. Machine
shops have been remodeled and re-
equipped, but with appliances capable
of many times the old output.
Great Britain has doubled her eX-
ports of manufactured articles since
the armistice, bringing them to about
two-thirds of pre-war volume. MOST
of this has gone to the continent.
Germany has received the great
est proportional increase of English
eXports-from zero to S17,500,0O0
worth of merchandise in September
alone. Scandinavia stands first guam
titatively, Sweden from 100000
pounds sterling >worth month in
1918 To 100000 pounds sterling;
Norway from 100000 pounds to H.
from less than 100000 pounds TO
100000.
America is buying less than before
the armistice. l3,OS9,0OO pounds ster-
ling in 1918, as compared with TO-
6O7, 900 pounds sterling per month
now. This is due largely to the fall
of the English pound.
All nt Work Again
OF the million women war workers
thrown out of employment by the
stoppage of munition plants after the
armistice all but about 10000 have
found jobs. Some found work through
the expansion of plants to a new level
of production, others through renewal
of industries almost suspended during
the war. Still others are in Vocations
which hardly existed here before the
war, aircraft production, manufac-
ture of toys Gin which 10000 women
are busy to-day preparing for christ
mas), electrical appliances, automo-
biles-industries formerly dwarfed
by German competition.