The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-11-19
Communities Warned
 10 Hold Industries
Capital, Artificial Barriers, Political Feuds, Labor
 Wars Destructive tO Progress Warns R. R. Head

try" was delivered here today by George c. Smith, assistant to the president, Missouri Texas railroad, in an address at the com. muniyt development session of the 14th New England conference The conferences was convened yesterday under auspices of the New England Council in cooperation with the six New England governors.
 New England's industrial develop. ment problem can be solved, Smith pointed out, provided capital can be assured Q square deal and req sonable opportunity for its safe re- turn with profit" and provided la- Dor can be assured an opportunity for flair days work under condi- tions as good as operations and profits can provide"
 Avoid Restrictions
 You must avoid restrictions and the placing of burdens upon ern~ ployers beyond their ability to pay out" he declared. Tt is up to you to develop the mutual interests of both employer and employed, and assure each the economic, social and political right to work and to live.
 New Englanders have contrib uted immeasurably to industrial America. You have provided, through your inventive genius, ma- chimes which require skilled labor only in their making-not in their operation, thus making industry free, to establish itself wherever labor is found that can be trained for machine operations. You have supplied skilled tool makers to the middle west and to the south. You have fostered and preserved our commerce with other countries, and built our ships. And you have pro- vided capital experienced in indus trial investment.
 Industries are not indigenous = not even in New England. Nor is skill inherited-although its apti- tudes may be. In colonial days, New England was without an industrial system, and colonists, for the most part, were without industrial skill. The amazing development which has taken place here was influenc- ed in part by economic conditions, and in part by policies, events, and conditions not economic, but social and political.
 "New England must now under take well-organized and sustained research and sales programs be- cause, in the future, industry will be influenced in the selections of its locations, by the services which communities and regions can best render. America will continue to de- velop new products and new uses for old ones, and it's industries will be reasonably free to select locations wherever the greatest economics of production can be found.
 Barriers
 '"The creation of artificial barriers against any region by legislation or political edict, will retard all re- gions, for the uncertainty of the continuance of the barrier will re- tard development. Your future in- dustrial growth, therefore, rests not in imposing restrictions on the rest of the country, but in searching your own area for favorable factors to be presented in most modern selling methods to the industrialists of the world. You must also. prevent the creation of political, social or econ- omical factors which may prove to be unfavorable to industry.
 'That the rate of industrial de. velopment in the south will be cur tailed for a time through the oper- ation of the new Wages and Hours act, seems certain to most of those who have studied the situation. That curtailment of an easily recognized trend is not good for the south, nol for New England from which the south continues to draw large amounts of manufactured products
 "Nor, in the end, will the curtail- ment of production or the stopping of trends growing out of the natural development of an empire be good for the politicians, who, by law ar1d edict, upset the operations of eco- homie actions; and neglect the les sons of even our own histories-writ- ten so forcefully into the statistics of our recent national growth.
 "New England's record is a long and good one. Continue to keer yourselves it for industry and ther tell the industrial world what you have done and what it may expect in the peaceful pursuit of profits and you will have again solved the problem of industrial development.