Britain ‘recovering’

Press, 21 April 1977, Page 6

Britain ‘recovering’

Britain is well on the road: to economic recovery', said I the British High Commissioner to New Zealand (Mr Har-I old Smedley), in Christchurch | yesterdav. Mr Smedley was speaking at a Silver Jubilee luncheon held by the English Speaking Union’s Canterbury branch. Media reports often gave the impression of “total disarray" in Britain, he said. “It is shown as a place where strikes are never-end-ing, where the economy is on its last legs, and as a society no longer relevant in the modern world; a desperate

: people already on the Gadarlene slope to self-destruction.” He was not suggesting that ■individual reports were inacileurate, said Mr Smedley. | ; “But the sum of the whole >jis less than the sum of the liparts.” -1 There were several positive /[features on the British scene at present, he said. e Industrial relations were -Jnot as serious as they were painted. Britain’s record of e i strikes was actually better -'than many of its trade com’jpetitors, and in the last two /years had markedly improved. »! Inflation was a problem, he

admitted — “the scourge of modern life.” It had hit Britain hard in the wake of the 1973 oil-price increases, and had risen to 30 per cent. But it was halved and was still falling until the recent rapid decline in the value of sterling.

Government action in recent months had begun to rectify the situation once more, and international confidence in the pound had been shown by a willingness to assist in its stabilisation.

He predicted a further decline in the rate of inflation after mid-year. Britain’s balance of payments had gone tumbling into deficit with the post-1973 inflation, he said. But those deficits had been heavily redu" n d with the growing supply of North Sea oil.

This was estimated to be about 30 million tons this year — a third of Britain’s total needs. Within three years, he said, Britain would be self-supporting in oil. By the end of the year, the balance of payments would be in surplus.