NEED FOR ENTERPRISE IN ECONOMIC FUTURE

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27796, 22 October 1955, Page 4

NEED FOR ENTERPRISE IN ECONOMIC FUTURE

"By enterprise, vision, courage and prudence and above all hard work and thrift we will justify our confidence in the future,” said Sir Harry Pilkington, immediate past president of the Federation of British Industries, at the conclusion of an address to the council of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association. He spoke of economic conditions in industry, especially employment, investment, capital development, productivity and labour relations, drawing parallels between Britain and New Zealand.

"I want to emphasise that you are busy, with very full employment—that is to say with no labour easily available to those who need more men, and that with your prosperity and the great developments ahead, you may well expect this to last for a very long time,” he said. “Everyone knows that what people in many countries have not sufficiently realised is how parallel are our circumstances in Britain with yours—now and always. We too are very fully employed—over employed—and although not permanently so I believe that this year our degree of over-full employm«2lls even grater than vours. The healthy side of this is the confident spirit in a real, prosperous future ahead, the belief that by our own efforts, particularly those of us in private enterprise, we can hold our place m the world, regain lost ground as a result of the war, and increase the standard of living of all of us. Also, savings are high, investment high and morale high. “■pie danger signal is that there is !}°- * on ? er J? ny safety valve - an y flexibility m the economy. And I do not think you have reached that stage yet. Here I think there is more reserve of hours that could be usefolly employed if necessary,” Sir Harry Pilkington said. . There were 500.000 unfilled vacancies m Britain notified at labour exchanges and only 200,000 registered unemployed, he said. There were 300,000/ more people in work than there wer/ a year ago and industrial output was increasing at the rate of about 6 trfr cent, a year. Overtime was being worked to an excessive extent; Jhe coal could not keep Dace with the rising demand: and efforts were not going up fast enough to pay for the heavy import bill. "Y/u too may well be enjoying some/of the benefits and some of the daggers of prosperity not fully under Control.” Full Employment, Sir Harry Pilkington sauf that full employment could be a fact’ but would not be with extravagance/or idleness, or if different aspects of production got out of balance. "It Also won’t be if we aim too much at /elf sufficiency, if we forget that ,we depend on selling all over the wor/d the products we make best and cheapest on liberal trading policies, and on economic, competitive production. / There, too, your own problems are Aiirrored.” In the years ahem it must be really attractive to come and livq in New Zealand if New Zealand was to draw from. Britain thy very people it wanted. "You musjr ensure not only that your skies aite blue, your people friendly, and/your wages high, but | that the money earned here will buy as much as at would elsewhere, that ‘ it pays to dime here, and that there : is always s sense of purpose.” Also, ( to investment capital, New Zealand Yould have to offer investors j

the certainty they could find elsewhere.

Discussing productivity, Sir Harry Pilkington said it was necessary to get more output per man. That could be done in two ways—by eliminating waste of men, materials and time, and by avoiding duplication; and by mechanisation. Unless management took the responsibility for seeing that it happened, it would not. There was a need for patience and real and intelligent co-operation with labour to achieve increased productivity. “When we are prosperous, and not too prosperous, so are you; when we are temporarily under-empjoyed so are you; when we are speeding too much and saving too little so are you; when we are, as at presents perilously near inflation, so are yoyj when we have to face facts, to take unpleasant decisions, so I am sure will you—and that time is now/today,” said Sir Harry Pilkington.