The Washington herald., 1919-11-16
By JOHN LLOYD BALDERsTON.


London. Oct. 2s.-This country, as
an American soldier remarked to me
last year. with puzzled brow. loves
to knock itself" People at home
have watched British exchange tum-
BILE to unthought-of depths in Wall
Street. they have read of deficits in
year running into billions. they have
pondered solemn warnings In Parlia-
ment that the country was headed
straight for bankruptcy.
And resulting from these things
there exists in the United States a
totally false conception OF the indus-
trial position in this country. l am
not now writing OF the financial situ-
alton. which Is bad enough. and will
be dealt with in a dispatch next
week By industrial position 1 mean
production and marketing of goods.
employment of labor. all that tangled
skein OF economic endeavor upon
which the credit and financial pros
perity Of any country ultimately
depend.
England Revfving.
Old England is coming back"
Her chief Industrial competitor in the
Old World was destroyed, for. the
present generation. by the war. She
has painted red the map Of the globe
until her arm ached and she dropped
the paint can. And now here at homo
amid all the self-depreciation of press
and public, all the gloomy forebodings
III which Brltons love to indulge, the
wheels Of the factories are humming
as never before and a new industrial
era is beginning.
In setting down the facts. the most
surprisingly cheerful facts. that in
vestigation unearths about the indus
trial situation here. I have no desire
to slur over the labor difficulties and
the terrible financial burdens facing
the country. But. with a healthy con-
stitution. the human system can
throw off ailments that would be fa-
tai to an invalid. John Bull may have
The labor mumps and the financial
measles, but his vital organs are
sound.
First. the problem of unemployment.
Most dismal were the forebodiHgs
heard here in the highest quarters
during the war as to the situation
10 be expected when 5,0c0. coo men were
suddenly dumped back into civil life,
10 compete for Jobs with millions re-
leased from closed-dowH munition
plants. Plans for rehabilitation. IL
was said when the armistice came.
had not been completed. and chaos
was TO be expected.
Three Per Cent JobIess.
>What are the facts. a year after the
armistice7 Opt OF every hundred
workers. men and women. ninety
seven are toiling on full time and
only three are jobless. This is true
although the unemployed are still
permitted to draw unemployment beu-
eflts from the state.
The more these official figures are
examined the more remarkable theI
appear, for they indicate that produc-
tion has already passed the pre-war
average, and that the conflict with
Germany did indeed. as some opti-
mists predicted it would, wake up,
England
For twenty-five years the aver
age number of unemployed has been
about what it is today. three in
each 100. In years of exceptional
prosperity the figure dropped to
two. But at present the unem-
ployed consist, for the most part.
of $4,000 demobilized soldiers.
nearly all without trades. who
have not yet been absorbed into
industry. and among the skilled
workers Of the country, members
of trades unions that give out-of-
work benefits, the percentage of un-
employed is 2-2. Trouble in the
coal regions is responsible for most
of this number of, jobless men.
and in nearly all Industries less
than one worker in each hundred
is Idle, -.r
absorbed Returned Men. q.
To put these figures into a phrase.
there are no skilled men to be had
in England. The unemployment
crisis was a bogy that never ma
terfalized. Britain had no more
trouble than America in absorbing
her returned men and getting the
wheels turning again.
Profuction is the corner-stone of
prosperity in any nation Twelve
mcntip ago England was vast
war machine. her people living az
hest they could on goods made in
peace time, consuming only the
absolute minimum necessary to