Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-09-23
BY FRANK H. SIMONDS.

II N recent weeks the London cables
and news letters have been laying
particular emphasis upon the new
i direction of British Imperialism
and describing the cotemporary
Importance which is being attached to
the future development of the So-called
tropical colonies. All of the various
phases of this discussion are of very
real importance, because they disclose
anew the growing perception in the
British Islands of the fact that politi-
cally and hdustrially it is not going to
be possible to restore the situation
which existed before the World War.
1t is only financially that British
strength is. as yet, unimpaired.
Despite great losses during the war
and enormous burdens incident to the
conflict, Britain still retains vast
wealth, which is chiefly represented in
investments outside the British Isles Ill
the white dominions, in India and the
various tropical colonies and in the
world at large. If London has not yet
fully recovered the primacy which it
held in the financial world before 1914,
it is at the least clear that in this direc-
ton much has been achieved in the re-
covery of what might be called one OF
Britains "lost provinces"
bine to indicate the decline in other di-
rections British coal mines, textile
factories, iron and steel industries and
railways are, in the main, being con-
Quoted at loss. British unemploy-
ment, after sinking slowly to the million
mark, has this Summer risen by more
than a quarter of million and now
passes 1900, 900. Concomitantly, Brit
ish population is rapidly becoming sta
tionary and already an actual decline
has set in across the Scotch border.
The English birth rate has, too. fallen
we'll below the French. Notwithstand-
ing this fact, however, all British au-
thorities agree that emigration is the
single possible cure of unemployment
and a recent official report stated the
brutal fact that more than 100000
miners could never again hope for EN-
ployment at their own trade.
Business in Baw Way.
On the business side Britain is mani
festly in a bad way. Its situation may
fairly be compared to that of some
great industrial corporation, which, hav-
ing over long periods made enormous
profits and having invested these profits
in other fields, now conducts its own
operations at a loss but still pays divi-
dends out of the returns which come In
from its fortunate investments. In the
British case the figure goes farther, for
the British government is today paying
a million and quarter OF available
workers a dole, which enables them to
live in idleness.
The basic fact in the British situation
is that, accelerated by the war, real
revolution has taken place in the eco
nomic world. Coal. on which British
prosperity was founded, has yielded to
oil. While the world consumption Is
stationary or tends to decrease, there Is
a constant overproduction and BRITISH
costs make it increasingly impossible
for British coal producers to meet Ger
man and Polish competition. And the
same fact influences the iron and steel
trades, which in turn are steadily de-
pressed by competition.
In the textile field not only are there
springing up in all the lands formerly
customers of Britain, notably China and
India. great factories. which employ
native laborers and thus produce at far
lower costs, but in both these fields anti
British agitations have led to boycottS
and further reduction in the conSump-
ton of British goods. Inevitably Brit
ish shipping lines and railways both re-
fleet this Shrinkage in their operating
revenues and the effects extend to the
shipbuilding trade.
Put briefly, in the face of mounting
evidence, it is not longer to be doubted
that the old British game is up. For
a century the British profited by the
fact that the industrial revolution came
first to them, while their easily avail
able coal mines and great merchant ma
rine enabled them to seize and hold the
position of the worlds factory. Not
until the beginning of the present GEN.
tury did the situation begin to change,
and not until the war was the change
unmistakable.
Population Too Large.
But today the British can no longer
support their relatively huge and fright
fully congested population in the Brit
ish Islands by trade, commerce and in
duStry alone. Moreover, Britain cannot
even partially feed this great population
from its own agricultural production,
for in the last century agriculture has
been sacrificed to industry and today
the farm question is even more acute
in England than in our own Middle and
Far West. If there were no other source
of income than that flowing from the
production of the home population, a
certain number of people would be
compelled to migrate without delay. or
starve.
But in practice it is out of the ques-
ton to permit starvation. Politically,
labor has become very powerful and de-
spite all the traditions of order and
restraint in the United Kingdom, actual
starvation would there, as elsewhere,
inevitably produce violent revolution.
To keep the British show going it is
just as necessary now to provide a dole
as it was necessary in the days of the
old Roman Empire to provide corn and
oil for the large unemployed popula-
ton of the imperial city.
But feeding and maintaining in idle
ness a cOrnparatiVelV large fraction of