"A CAPITAL SHIP--"

"It pays to advertise" and England needs money. Her old pre-war commerce is no longer, and yet as a manufacturing nation she must have trade. The result of this need is the "S. S. British Trade", a new departure in the annals of shipping as well as of advertising. Built especially for the purpose, she will tour the world, carrying on board the representatives of about two hundred firms and samples of their commodities,--a county fair on shipboard, or a floating Heinz pier let loose from Atlantic City moorings.

The expedition is to visit South America, Africa, Australia, Japan and thence home through the Mediterranean until finally, after four months spent in about thirty-five different ports, it returns to England supposedly laden with orders and business opportunities. In short, it is an attempt on a grand scale to build up the fallen fortunes of British manufacturing, and so the first step toward an England industrially active and financially solvent.

The initiative and enterprise exhibited by the firms taking part in the experiment is most encouraging, particularly in the confidence which it shows in European reconstruction. "The best way to resume is to resume" and England has apparently grown tired of waiting for Genoa "or any other creature" to smooth the way. If the British merchants continue their activity at this rate American manufacturers will not have to be bothered by foreign trade at all, but can remain comfortably behind the bars of protective tariff.