The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-08-26
AMERICA IS NOW. WORLD WORKSHOP. ENGLISHMAN SAYS.
British Are Fretted By False Fear Of 0Ver-Pro-
 duCtion
Fly RALPH IT. TURNER


 LONDON, August 25.-America has replaced England as "the workshop of the world" and the American workman, man for man, and week by week, is producing three times the wealth turned out by the English man.
 These are some of the striking statements made by Charles A. Me Curdy. member of Parliament and prominent Lloyd George supporter in a speech at Leeds. McCurdy was chief whit under the Lloyd George coalition government.
 His speech, resume of the indus trial situation in England today, has attracted attention because of the searching analysis he made of England's industrial system as a whole. McCurdy paid a high tribute to American industry and the eff ciency of the American workman. He suggested that Britain's losses in the world markets were due, not so much to the disturbed conditions of cen tral Europe, as to the faulty organi- zation of British industry, while the United States has been profiting by superior methods of production. No Longer Workshop.
 Two facts must be faced" McCur- dy told the great manufacturing cen ter of Leeds, If we are to find rem edy for bad trade and unemployment In this country. First. thefact that England is no longer the workshop of the world; second, the fact that we are not paying attention to our home trade.
 We are no longer tho leading manufacturing country, America outstrips us at every point.
 British industry is still fettered by false fear of over production. False economic doctrines clog our progress.
 Our workers have yet to learn what America long ago discovered, that increased production means in-- creased purchasing power; that the workers themselves are the consum- CTS of 90 per cent of the goods which they produce"
 The inference left by McCurdy was that the British laborer, under the influence of the trade union, proceeds on the false economic theory that by restricting production he will create more ejobs and thereby lessen the danger of unemployment.
 Get Americans.
 industries" McCurdy continued We must produce more wealth and con sume more of the wealth produced
 While the production of coal per miner was falling from 312 tons per year to 259 tons in the United King dom, 1t was rising from 400 tons per man per year to GS1 tons in the United States"
 'McCurdy added that comparative production of British and American workers in 26 typical industries, ranging from shoes to silks, soap, cotton goods and railway vehicles, showed that the Americans output was three times as great as the Brit isher's.
 Declaring that British industry was on trial today, McCurdy said there were two charges in the indictment:
 First, that the British capitalist system before the war did not pro- duce enough wealth to maintain an leverage standard of comfort for the worker; and, second, that it has failed to make proper provision for the reserve army; of industry-the industrious unemployed"
 McCurdy explained the latter charge when he asserted that i've cannot at the lowest expect the per manent level of unemployme to be less than half million in this coun- try"
 Either industry, or the state, ors both he said. must assume respons.- bility for the honest. industrious, un- employed worker.