Kenneth Lindsey, British Labor Leader, Compares Virtues and Faults of English and American Economic Policies

A consciousness of economic well-being, backed by a pioneer spirit of economic enterprise is the foundation of present American prosperity, according to Kenneth Lindsay, Labor member of the English Parliament, who visited the University recently to speak at the Liberal Club.

"Americans don't stop to think about economic evils and depressions," Mr. Lindsay told a CRIMSON representative, "they get to work to try to remedy them." A member of the Oxford University debating team that defeated the University speakers three years ago. Mr. Lindsay is now in this country studying labor conditions.

Best Men Out of Politics

"Here in America your best men are not in politics," he continued. "By this I do not mean to belittle American politics, but to say that the best executive minds of the country are bound up in the business of the nation, with the consequent wisdom and efficiency in its conduct. These executives are constantly striving to improve the economic welfare of the land, and so there is little need for agitation among the working classes themselves for reform or betterment of general conditions. All this is handled by the business brains of the country that are always active for greater improvement and efficiency.

"The rise of the Labor movement in England, in contrast to its absence in America, is due to the reversed conditions that obtain in the British Isles. Politics absorb most of the leaders, having great industries to shift for themselves. The coal-mining industry, that is one of the largest in England has been almost totally paralyzed by the rise in the development of water power and its use in manufacturing. The poverty in some of the coal districts is terrifying and almost unbelievable. In the southern part of Wales people are living on crusts of bread, amid conditions of filth that defy description. It is among the workers in such quarters as these that the sentiment for a powerful Labor party arises. You will find very little Labor sentiment among the agricultural sections, or at the fashionable watering places. It is all among the working classes themselves who have suffered from lack of economic foresight and a passion for politics.

Beer vs. Radio

"Beer and radio are now two of the leading commodities in England. The rise of these and other new industries has so astonished and paralyzed the English people that they have no ability to meet the new conditions. And therein lies the essential reason for the economic prosperity of America and the depression of England, with its resultant Labor agitation. Instead of theorizing and regretting new conditions. America meets them, and makes the best of them, while Englishmen are at a loss for a course of action.

"So long as the American economic fibre is as it is now, there will be no call for widespread Labor agitation here nor will the Labor party succeed in England until it is unified under strong leaders, and succeeds in winning to its standard some of the districts that, under the glow of success, now stand aloof. When these districts and industries see the good that may be done by Labor united the party will be on the road to greater power."