CAR INDUSTRY DISMISSALS

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28012, 5 July 1956, Page 11

CAR INDUSTRY DISMISSALS

“Part Of Reshuffle Of Workers”

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, July 4. The dismissals in Britain’s car industry were not a catastrophic collapse of Britain’s economy but part of a reshuffle of the country’s workers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Harold Macmillan) told the House of Commons last night.

Replying to Opposition criticism of the Government’s economic policy. Mr Macmillan said the switching of manpower must go on in the national interest. He said the car industry dismissals did not mean there was danger of a general recession. The House, by a majority of 71, approved the Government's economic policy. An Opposition motion of criticism, which said that the policy provided no solution to the nation’s economic problems, was rejected by 310 votes to 239.

The Labour Party’s chief economic spokesman. Mr Harold Wilson, lashed out at the Government’s economic policy as “the economics of bedlam.” Initiating the House of Commons economic debate. Mr Wilson said: ‘‘The credit squeeze is the price of industrial expansion in the motor-car industry and other industries, and it has had to be pushed to the point where it forces contraction in that very industry.” He added: “This is not economic planning. This is the economics of bedlam.

“Now economic realities have caught up with the motor-car industry and the Government.”

Mr Wilson called recent Government economies “an assortment of vicious little cuts” and referred to defence cuts as "piffling reductions.” He said that the Australian import cuts were another Government chicken coming home to roost. “You cannot sacrifice the interests of producers to the free play of speculative commodity markets and then expect them to be able to go on buying yours at the same rate.”

The Government had severed one by one the economic links with the Commonwealth, and Britain’s export industries had to pay the price, he said. Public Inquiry Urged

Winding up for the Opposition, Mr George Brown (Labour), called for a high-level meeting between the unions and the British Motor Corporation management to discuss compensation for the 6000 dismised men who, he said, had been unjustly thrown on the streets.

There should also be a public inquiry into the motor industry, he said. Opposition cries of “resign.”, and cheers from Government members greeted the Chancellor when he rose to reply to Labour’s attack. Mr Macmillan forecast that Britain’s trading balance with the rest of the world would show a profit of not less than £100.000,000 for the first six months of this year. This £ 100.000.000 included “invisible” exports such as shipping, insurance, receipts from investments, he said, and added: “It is not enough, but all the same it is very encouraging.” Mr Macmillan said that the threat of unemployment in the present circumstances came from one quarter only—“from our own unfitness to compete in the markets of the world.” The automobile industry, the Chancellor said, could not have expected to retain the proportion of world trade in motor-cars which it obtained in 1950. The Chancellor was involved in noisy exchanges with Mr Richard Crossman, Labour M.P. for Coventry, one of the areas hit by the car slump.

Mr Crossman asked what sort of planning it was to allow 40.000 more men into an industry and then have to get them out again. anybody tell me how you plan the exports of the country?” the Chancellor retorted.

Lowest Antarctic Temperature

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON. July 3. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica was reported today from the Soviet expedition’s desolate inland base —minus 80.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Russian base is about 8780 feel above sea level, and nearly 24 miles inland.