business of the country has drifted gradually from State Street to Wall Street. In every town of the country are to be found merchants who have forsaken bleak New England and set up elsewhere new "Boston Stores". New England no longer supplies her own poultry and dairy needs. The dairy industry, in fact, is regarded as in an alarming condition, because the number of cows in New England is steadily on the decline. The red school house, with its windows boarded up; the abandoned farm, with only its lilac bush left to tell of happier years; the mill village, its water wheels still, its drab tenements deserted, its pavements grassgrown this is one side of the New England of today. The New England which led the country, first in agriculture, later in shipping and commerce, and lastly in manufacturing, now counts its pennies and clips its

coupons.

PHYSICIANS have not been wanting

to diagnose New England's ills.

one another, while the patient herself

has often been inclined to adopt the attitude that the malady is largely imaginary and as much the result of panic as of actual indisposition. The troubles of New England, according to those who live outside the Pale, are due partly to age, conservatism, provincialism, and self-satisfaction; partly also to mere inertia.

In one sense, age includes within itself all the other ailments. New England has three centuries of tradition behind it. The frontier spirit that made the term "Yankee" a synonym for creative energy has flown elsewhere. New England wants to con

serve and maintain what it has. The control of its businesses is often in the hands of trust companies and legal firms, where it has been placed in the interest of the widows and orphans of the men who founded them. The business executives of New England, according to their critics, at least, sit at ease in their desk chairs, too comfortably ensconced to take the trouble to understand the needs of their customers, and oblivious to the changes which are transforming other parts of the country. Automobile manufacturers of Detroit, for example, find that New England manufacturers do not want to be told how a certain thing can be done that has never been done before; that they do not visit their important customers to find out by personal contact how the interests of both buyer and seller can be better served; that they do not understand the meaning or value of proper advertizing; and that they are perfectly satisfied with themselves and heedless of criticism.

specific, two great

Tweaknesses in New England in

dustry are due to moss-backed management and failure to understand the first principles of merchandizing. As an example of the former, a financial house asked to have a profit and loss statement made out every thirty days by a company which had been invited to do some financing. The answer was that such a procedure had never been heard of and was totally impossible. In regard to the second point, the weakness in merchandizing knowledge is obvious - New England does not know her markets. Products are manufactured and people may buy them or not, as the case may be.

There has rarely been, until recently, any attempt to find out what people want to buy and then to make the articles accordingly.

New England industry, in the popular mind, is limited to two products; first, textiles, and second, boots and shoes. As a matter of fact, these comprise but thirty-one per cent. of New England's industrial output. Yet it is true, on the other hand, that the prosperity of many New England towns is built around a factory or group of factories devoted to the manufacture of one of these products. When hard times hit these industries, the results are obvious.

SINCE the post-war reaction, the

New England textile industry has been in a blue funk. Textile towns, of which Lowell is a good example, have had such bad inferiority complexes that they have been inclined to regard their misfortunes as an act of God, rather than as an interesting economic phenomenon born of over-production and the natural tendency of an industry to congregate where production costs are lowest. They have not even sought to find out the underlying causes of depression, preferring an agonizing uncertainty to the sure diagnosis of a research expert. The mere fact that the Amoskeag Company, the largest

disregarding also the traditional excuses of Northern mill owners that they must pay higher taxes, conform to more strict labor legislation, and import all raw material, the plight of the New England textile industry is due, at least in part, to contributory negligence. Business stagnation is not to be cured by wage cuts, but rather by the adoption of the scientific method of solving problems. There has been little substantial research in the Northern textile industry; little forecasting of economic and industrial conditions, little planning and scheduling of factory operation, little use of cost systems to control overhead. Most important of all, there has not

been enough endeavor to keep up with

changing conditions_in_distribution. For example, the New England firms which have always marketed through. commission agents find it difficult to compete on equal terms with firms marketing direct. Furthermore, the speeding up of changes in style has necessitated much closer contact with market needs than ever before, and this contact has been lacking in the case of the majority of textile mills. Intuition, which masquerades often under the name of "past experience" and "common sense", has been preferred to knowledge of facts.

MANY ways the term "New Eng

800,000 spindles, could seriously consider liquidation, is evidence of the spirit abroad. Many smaller mills have already moved South. It is estimated that seventy-five per cent. of equipment now being made for new textile mills or additions of all kinds is being sold to Southern mills.

Disregarding Southern competition,

geographic. New England is a "state of mind". As a section it is different from the rest of the country, and is well aware of the difference. This distinction is something more than a matter of accent; something much more intangible. The person who arrives in Boston from Chicago immediately feels the slower, more

conservative, more mature tempo. The outsider does not like it. New England is not popular with the rest of the country.

Many people draw a parallel between New England and Old England - a rather deadly one in many ways. "Here," they say, "is the same blight of industrialism, the same over-population, the same inability of an urbanized people to feed itself by means of the products of its own section. We hope New England does become a failure in industry; it will then be a better place to live in."

PPOSED to this there is a large and ever larger body of opinion which would make over New England, and would have it hum as industriously as Detroit or Chicago. This opinion is becoming organized in the hands of capable leaders who are putting themselves at the head of a movement for the Renaissance of New England. There is a "Progress Week" in Boston, a "Spirit of Lawrence Week" in one of the oldest of New England's industrial communities, an "Exposition of Progress" under the auspices of the New Haven Chamber of Commerce. There is a new consciousness of sectional unity, more potent than at any time in the past. The keynote of this changed psychology is "Coöperation". The public is being converted by the most modern methods of propaganda and publicity. Behind all this movement is the organizing and stimulating influence of the New England Council, formed of business leaders from each of the six States, which is now studying the problems of New England with the help of the best governmental and professional talent.

Herbert Hoover said very truly of

the New England Council that "It is not the actual result in action that this Council may secure in the establishment of new industry, or the expansion of industry, so much as the consciousness of the responsibility of the community for collective action in promoting its industrial welfare.” In its effort to build a New England Consciousness, it publishes a New England News Letter, gives news service to New England newspapers, holds annual New England Conferences, and itself meets officially four times a year. It has induced the United States Government to make a survey of production and distribution in New England. This is to be the most complete and exhaustive investigation of its kind ever attempted. Special committees have been appointed to study particular problems. Some of these have already reported, stating the chief obstacles to progress and suggesting remedies.

IN. AGRICULTURE, for example, the problem as it seems to the experts, is first, to secure the grading and standardization of the quality products of New England farms; and second, to effect a merchandizing system for them along modern lines. The first will be accomplished by uniform State grading laws; the second by educational publicity. The forestry programme, as outlined, is particularly interesting, since forests are regarded as the natural crop of most of New England. Crowded in population as it is, it still possesses three and two-tenths acres of woods per capita; even Connecticut having one and onetenth acres. European experience has shown that eight-tenths of an acre per capita is enough to make a State self

supporting as to timber products. to timber products. While fire protection and control of forest pests are urgently needed, there is an even more urgent necessity to have forest taxation adjusted so that owners of forest land may hold their property over long periods. In most of the New England States, owners of woodlots sell standing timber as soon as it has salable value, because of the method of assessing taxes annually on the value of the timber, rather than waiting for the assessment of the tax until the timber is cut.

IN

'N ANOTHER field, the big power companies and State regulatory bodies have already been brought together and a plan worked out whereby power rates across State lines shall be submitted to the Public Service Commission of the States concerned. Many of the larger banks, furthermore, are coöperating in a survey to determine the relation of commercial banking to industry. There has been a suspicion in many quarters that banks were not helping out wholeheartedly or else were not well acquainted with the latest methods of banking. In addition to this, each industrial community is being invited to take an inventory of its assets to serve as a basis for planning its future, and to find out definitely its industrial gains and losses. A special committee has been appointed to further the development of aviation, in which New England is behind.

One of the most interesting lines of development is the move to make New England a resort. The examples of Florida and California have tantalized the shore and mountain recreation centres of New England with dazzling

pictures of what might be. Many communities have abandoned their ancient policy of "splendid isolation", of suspicion of strangers, and of cool aloofness. The necessity of courtesy to visitors is being impressed on traffic officers, garages, and local merchants. The "Welcome" signs are being newly painted. Information booths are provided. Maine has passed an "open door" act, whereby nonresidents can operate their automobiles for an unlimited period in the State provided they are properly registered in their own States. Tourist camps are being taken under State regulation.

This spirit of coöperation and coördination is to be noted with wonderment and, indeed, with admiration. It means something.

EW ENGLAND now wavers be

NEW

tween the prosaic but profitable path of prosperity and the ancient and honorable way of the Forefathers which somehow had led into the Slough of Despond. It is not yet by any means unanimous in opinion, although the articulate portion is vociferous enough in declaring that it wants it slice of the pie of progress. Yet, even with the best will in the world, New England has not proved that she can come back". She enters late into the race, and there are many stable doors that are being locked too late. Nevertheless, as an experiment in mass psychology, as a proof of the power of publicity, and especially as evidence of the constructive force of coöperation for mutual benefit, this effort of New England to regain her ancient position will be watched on all sides with the keenest interest.

T

trained reserve of pilots and mechanics who could be shifted quickly into military service.

convenience, and so keep alive a question that has been repeatedly asked during the last half dozen years.

Why has our country, where the airplane was born and where every other means of transportation is most highly developed, lagged so conspicuously behind Europe in perfecting commercial air lines?

The answer is quite simple. We have not had a Government subsidy, as have the European nations. Until very recently, private capital has witheld support because operating returns could not be foreseen that would warrant the huge investment necessary for building de luxe ships and maintaining regular passenger service. In Europe, however, the leading Governments have financed construction of powerful planes for passenger service because of the assumed need for potential bombing planes and for a

THE United States we have not

pressing, and conditions have favored a line of development which, while slower, is economically more substantial. This development has been through the air mail. În postal and express service the pressing demand is for night transportation, so that mail may leave one city at the end of the business day and be delivered next morning at its destination. In European countries distances are so short that the railroads can furnish such overnight service. But in the United States only the airplane can thus tie up widely separated cities.

Hence, while American aviation is still in its infancy for passenger trans portation, it is growing, through the air mail, upon much sounder lines than abroad. Obviously its growth will now soon include well organized and well patronized passenger routes. Privately owned airplanes for individual trans