TELL THE WORLD THAT BRITISH IS BEST.
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Do Not Show Irritation of America's Boastful Self-confidence but . .Take a Leaf From Her Book.
IT IS OF LITTLE USE, as these words are being committed to paper, attempting to concentrate one's mind on, any specific subject in which the commercial-vehicle world is at all interested, other than these stupendous and historical happenings which ard even now -holding and tiveting the attention of the whole civilized world—ay, and much of the uncivilized world, too. It is difficult to realize that these present days are the most momentous in the history of the world. It is all very well to preach that we must be particularly guarded against a possibility of an all-round slackening of effort on the assumption that final peace may be near. That is simple enough to plead and difficult enough to accomplish, particularly while sensation is being added to sensation, when great nationalities are to each other into the pit of national abasement. The will to impose upon our adversary may not be in the slightest degree weakened, and yet it is almost inevitable that our actual physical and mental output is reduced while these giant happenings pass before us. Matters have-now reached such a stage that even Britishers might be excused for conceding an expression of optimism, a strange enough attitude for them at any time. But once having admitted that things at last have gone well, as they always do at last go well with us island folk and our kin, it were well not to relax such national duties as still remain to us and particularly to throw every ounce of spare energy into immediate preparations for the conditions that may follow the peace—our peace which is now secured. Almost all of us are left guessing again as to what is broadly going to happen in an industrial sense, and yet there are undoubtedly great numbers of firms and individuals who have well-cut and dried plans for future occupation, plans which, it is hoped, will tide them over that particularly difficult period between the cessation of hostilities and the full resumption of peace-time activities. It cannot be said that the Ministry of Reconstruction, even with such general pronouncements as that of Friday last, has succeeded to any great degree in convincing the British public that we as a nation are prepared any more for peace than we were for war. Indeed, it would be quite remarkable if we do in the end find ourselves fairly well equipped for the new problems. The Ministry of Reconstruction has at any rate achieved some reputation for energy. It has published conclusions already arrived at in Committee by a number of leading men in various walks of life. But so far as the ordinary man is concerned, it appears to have achieved to date far too little detail. Of generalities we have had plenty, seasoned with a few rather futile suggestions of the nature of turning tin hats into " jardinieres " or high explosives into fertilizers. But when all that has been published is boiled down,. the programme actually before the country, as distinct from whatever may be wrapped up in the departmentaf 'Minds of that branch of officialdom charged with planning the recovery of the nation's industry, amounts to very little indeed— hardly enough in fact-to matter at all. If we as a State have made up our minds, we citizens know nothing of the proposed solutions to such grave reconstruction problems as the future employment of women, the priority of cessation of war contracts, the availability of raw material, and so on and so on. Quite the best effort at a constructive review of the whole situation was published in the columns of "The Morning Post" about a fortnight ago, without indication of its authorship, although there was some evidence that it emanated from a Government source, whilst it has also been suggested that it represents the considered opinion of some leading manufacturer. Nothing approaching so plucky an attempt to reveal a " rgSsume " of the problems and thet• suggested solutions has been handed out to the nation by the duly appointed Ministry charged with reassuring the nation that something more than mere muddling will be our programme.
Judged by the standard of such plans as have been made public, the industry of the country is by no means ready to swing at once from shells to sewing machines. but it must nevertheless not be assumed, as a matter of fact, that many of the principal industrial concerns of the country are not themselves quite wide awake so far as their proposed programmes are
concerned. It is A fact, however, that with our oldtime methods of secrecy, born and bred of national
and Governmental rule-of-thumb arrangements, most of these plans are being kept carefully secret, presumably for fear of competition. If this be sco,/t is
surely one of the most disquieting signs that. we have not even now learned fully the lesson of the new production even if we have learned it at all. The old days of secrecy and of fearfulness of others' efforts have got to disappear if England's manufacturing genius, revealed in so miraculous a manner through all these years of war, is to come into its own' fully and With proper authority in the new-time world of production. Quantity-output methods in the factory will be useless if the directing brains Of British businesses are not on similarly revitalized lines.
The existence of not a few elaborate plans of postwar production, for instance, in the commercial-vehi • de world, is known behind the scenes. But their authors are most anxious in some cases that these shall not be "prematurely disclosed." Surely in the name of the new enterprise there can be no valid reaSon for these old-time methods of secrecy to be pursued any longer. Why should not our plans of production and particulars of what we are going to make, the quantities of it, and the qualities of it., be made known as widely as possible at the earliest op-_ portunity ? Is there not every reason for it? Surely we are not convinced that the pigeon-holing methods condemned so drastically as the particular modus operandi of Government departments can be of any benefit to industry as a whole in the new circumstances. Indeed such methods appear to be fraught with the gravest disadvantages. We are an altogether suspicious crowd, and, proud as we are of our own achievements and production in a pig-headed and secretive sort of way, our actual confidence in our ability to "lick creation" in any and all directions is lamentably lacking. It is no secret that some little irritation has been caused in certain quarters owing to the American's ingrained custom of belauding their own possessions, achievements and intentions, a custom which in their less pushful great neighbours is inclined to breed annoyance and resentment. But it must be remembered that much of America's collossal industrial results have been secured by their own unvarying insistence upon their own ability and capacity. . Germany's remarkable industrial progress was materially aided by her supreme egotism. Most of us have learned to understand the American's point of view, and many of us to set it in the right perspective. It would do us no harm, and indeed a very great deal of good, if, instead of cavilling at America's own proud confidence we took a leaf out of Uncle Sam's book and talked a little more about ourselves, and insisted on rather more modern lines that has been our custom in the past, that British is best—as it is.
It is, Of course, a fact that our own industry at present suffers particularly from lack of a decisive lead from the authorities as to the demands which will have to be made on it when actual war requirements cease, as well as from lack of inforniation as to what is to come of that trade-killing surplus of well-maintained war lorries. Such absence of indication of the Government's intention may well be crippling the industry's power of decision, but would it not have been better had the industry insisted long ago on being properly infcirmed in order that it might begin to shout in the new way in ample time. It will take us all our time to persuade the world in the coming trade scramble that British is best and that Britain knows it. We have left others to find this out in the past. That will not do in future. We have got to go right out, and tell these others that there is nothing to touch us—and there is not when we are really trying! Now is the time.