Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 1949. INDUSTRY IN BRITAIN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 76, 10 January 1949, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 1949. INDUSTRY IN BRITAIN

A recent authoratitive review of the economic life of Britain during last year reveals a period of solid achievement in which substantial progress' was made and many of the gains of previous years were consolidated. When 1948 opened it had a background of strong effort which in the prev-

ious few months had been rapidly making good the heavy losses caused by the fuel crisis. As with most countries production is today the key for the solving of

Britain’s economic problems. Baking 1946 as the base the of - ficial index of production for the first nine .months of the year averaged 110, compared with 108 for t'h.e whole of 1947. In June and September the index touched the record rate of 124. The gross return in 1948 was about the same as that in 1938. But it is in cer-

tain individual industries that progress was most apparent:. These industries included steel and coal, agriculture, engineering, shipbuilding and electrical supplies, and cotton. For instance, with the main object of reducing imports of food, especially from the dollar countries, British agriculture last year got down to the five-year programme which aims

to raise the output by 1952 to 50 per cent above pre-war yields. The first fruits last year were encouraging, the total being some '25 per cent greater than before the war. Again, among the farm equipment the output of tractors was practically double that oi <1947 and more than ten times the 1938 rate.