BUSINESS CYCLES 46 



learned to save. So long as wages are good they spend all they 

 earn, and thus intensify the overproduction which is the cause 

 of their prosperity. Then, when hours are curtailed, or when 

 they lose their jobs, they have nothing to live on. Not only do 

 they fail to perform any appreciable part as consumers, but they 

 act as a drag on the rest of the community. Their very presence 

 loafing on the streets or hanging about the factory doors in hope 

 of work increases the feeling of insecurity which is one of the 

 prime factors in causing depression. France, being relatively 

 free from this evil, as well as from others that beset America, 

 is also relatively free from financial crises. 



England is less thrifty than France, and hence might be 

 expected to show the psychological effect of health much as does 

 the United States. She also depends upon manufacturing and 

 buys food from other regions much as do the North Atlantic 

 States. Moreover, her statistics are very full and reliable, so 

 that she might seem to be ideal as a test of the relation of health 

 to business. Nevertheless a comparison between the deathrate 

 and business activities fails to disclose any such relationship as 

 we have found in the United States. At first sight this may seem 

 to prove that health is not so important as we have supposed. 

 Such a conclusion, however, is scarcely warranted. In the first 

 place, the prosperity of England does not depend upon her own 

 resources to anything like the extent that ours does. One of her 

 greatest lines of business is the carrying trade. That depends 

 on the prosperity of many other countries scattered all over the 

 world. In the same way her food supply does not depend upon 

 her own climatic conditions, but upon those of the United States, 

 Australia, Argentina, India, and Russia. Thus unfavorable 

 conditions of health and of crops at home are apt to be neutralized 

 by favorable conditions abroad, an advantage which we do not 

 possess. Moreover, the British labor supply is less mobile than 

 ours. In this respect conditions are more like those of France. 

 Of course all the European countries draw some labor from their 



