HIGHEST IN HISTORY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 69, 3 January 1950, Page 5

HIGHEST IN HISTORY

INDUSTRIAL' OUTPUT OF BRITAIN REPORT BY SIR STAFFORD . CRIPPS WASHINGTON, January 1. Industrial production in Britain in 1949 had reached the highest point in its history, said the British Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Cripps) in a report to the United States Economic Cooperation Administration, which administered Marshall aid.

Sir Stafford said that Britain’s record of real progress could never have been made without the help she had received from the United States and Canada. The .fact that extraordinary assistance must cease before long made the balancing of trade between the sterling and dollar areas a most urgent task. There had been a marked rise in the volume of Britain’s exports to the United States and Canada since the devaluation of the pound. Sir Stafford Cripps said that Britain’s economic ties with the countries of Western Europe had been strengthened and that that trend had been encouraged by the relaxation on trade and payments. “It is along these lines that Britain is moving toward closer association with Western Europe while maintaining her position as the centre of the sterling area system,” Sir Stafford Cripps added. “By helping tp draw these two great trading groups together and promote a freer flow of trade between them, Britain lias been able to make an outstanding contribution toward the development of multilateral trade in the world.” Releasing this report and those from other Marshall aid countries, the Economic Co-operation Administrator (Mr Paul Hoffman) said that all reported that production was equalling or exceeding pre-war levels. Closer integration of trade relations between the European countries was being implemented, and all were agreed on the necessity for increasing exports to North America in the battle for economic rehabilitation. \ Mr Hoffman also said that Europe, without undue delay, must achieve economic unification, which would create a single market for its 275,000,000 consumers. There would be no political stability In Europe until the standard of living there was raised. It was too low for the comfort of Europeans and for the peace of the world. The Marshall Aid Roving Ambassador (Mr Averell Harriman), in a New Year’s message from Paris, said that after 21 months of Marshall aid Western Europe’s industrial production had risen 15 per cent, that before the war, and families were now eating almost as well aS'm 1938. Mr Harriman claimed that Communism had been thrown on the defensive everywhere in Western Europe, but he gave a warning against a “relapse.”