"Fordization"

Ever since greying Harvard Professor Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague became Economic Adviser to the Bank of England (TIME, Jan. 27, 1930), he has kept his mouth shut. Hearstian suspicions that he might be Wall Street's go-between in maneuvers to scale down Europe's War debts to the U. S. have slowly died out. Last week Professor Sprague, now an accepted and respected figure in "The City" (London's financial district), created a stir by stating his conviction that Prosperity can be restored in industrial countries by creating a demand for a new product--such as the motor car once was. This new product, said the Bank of England's Sprague, does not have to be invented. It is already at hand. Industrialists, aided by their Governments, have only to begin "Fordization of housing." If they throw sufficiently cheap houses on a suitably protected market, such action would release the vast purchasing power of myriads of people who would rush to buy houses today if the prices were not prohibitive.

Outlining safeguards, Professor Sprague said:

"Landowners should not be allowed to make any more out of their land than they are now getting.

"The producers of various materials and accessories which go into house construction should also be restrained from increasing the prices of their commodities. . . .

"It might be well for governments to have some control and regulation of building operations as a safeguard against their chief purpose being defeated."

While England warmed to the Sprague idea, U. S. dreams of a housing drive, aided by the Government, remained as remote as ever. Despite tall talk and flowery promises, President Hoover's Better Homes conferences were unable to get the building ball rolling against the dogged opposition of bankers holding delinquent mortgages, landlords with vacant property. The R. F. C. whose friends boasted that it would soon sweep slums out of existence has authorized one building loan of $3,957,000 to a Bronx, N. Y. concern but not one cent in cash has yet been made in advance to commence construction.

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