AMERICAN EXTRAVAGANCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9681, 4 January 1910, Page 4

AMERICAN EXTRAVAGANCE.

Mr James Hill, the American railway king, who recently returned to New York from Europe, has been giving expression to his views on the danger of American extravagance. He deplores the invasion of American cities by people who formerly lived profitably in tne country, and says that 70 per cent, of Americans now live in city houses and steam-heated flats. We have, he says, too few producers in America and a multitude of consumers, and in the meantime millions and millions of acres lie undisturbed all over the country. It is the mania for dollars and extravagance which has brought people from the country to American cities, and unless they return,and devote themselves to hogs, cereals, 'and milk, America, concludes Mr Hill, despite its amazing prosperity, ! will suffer such destruction in its moral fabric that the nation must ultimately go to the "demnition bow-wows," Mr Hill deplores the necessity for importing labour from Southern Europe, and regrets infinitely that thousands upon thousands of good American settlers, with capital and farming experience, are now trekking across the border to Canada. The extravagance to which Mr Hill alluded is not only national, as is illustrated by the wiping out of bug* forests, with no effort at replanting, but also the personal extravagance which prevails largely. All Americans are decided bulls on the future of then* country, ancVit is more of a custom there than in Europe to spend money "when you've got it, because there'll be plenty more to-morrow.'"