PATIENCE AND WORK

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 112, 5 February 1926, Page 10

PATIENCE AND WORK

ALL THAT BRITAIN REQUIRES

OLD LAND STAGGERING TO HER FEET AGAIN BRITISH M.P.’S VIEWS All’s well with. England. Our overseas trade is bigger to=day relatively than it was before the war. All that Great Britain asks is to he left alone to work. When a man lias been hard hit, one cannot expect him to bound to his feet all of a sudden. John Bull, however, has arisen on one elbow, and has even got a hip on the ground, and can confidently be expected to soon stand upright once more.

The above quiet statement of facts was made yesterday by Mr. R. G. Ellis. Conservative member for Wakefield (Yorkshire), when asked by a “Dominion” reporter for his' views on industrial conditions in England. Questioned as to whether Great Britain had lost her industrial supremacy. Mr. lillis declared that ns a matter of fact the Old Country was relatively supplying the outside world with more goods than she did before the war. “England had always 'a certain number of unemployed," he said, “but the war upset normal conditions, and encouraged people to live at a standard beyond that to which they had been accustomed. England, in common with Germany and other European nations, has a greater proportion than usual of unemployed because the world has not settled down to serious business since the great upheaval.

False Aspirations. A great deal of the industrial unrest, he declared, bad been due to every little European nation harbouring false ideals of greatness. They had set out with big staffs of Civil servants and had erected protective barriers against foreign goods, which had increased national expenditure at a time when the national exchequers were empty, and badly m need of the ' revenue which would come by exchange of trade. France had been the greatest sinner of all, he declared, because her statesmen had not had the courage to tell her people the true economic position. Instead of taxing the people, as England had done, the French statesmen had told their people that they would have to pay nothing, as the indemnity which would be exacted from Germany would not only pay for the cost of the war, but more than make up for all the damage which had been caused to property and industries. A saner tone was now being adopted in France, whose statesmen were now telling the people truths which even British statesmen had not hitherto divulged. The Locarno Pact. The Locarno Pact had marked an important step in the economic regeneration of Europe, as the representatives of the nations there assembled had plainly intimated to the European, nations that if they wished to rehabilitate themselves they would have to get down ,to work, and tear down the protective _ barriers they had erected around all their mushroom States. France, who had been the chief hindrance to the normal resumption of trade in Europe, because no one knew what she might do next, would also have to fall into line, and prospects for trade were accordingly brighter today than they had been at any time since the war. Work and Patience. Touching upon conditions in England, the member for Wakefield said that there had been too much interference with industry by politicians during and after the war. Speaking of the coal industry, with which he was personally intimately associated not only in England but it) Canada, Mr. Ellis said that the Miners’ Federation had insisted upon a certain standard. of wages irrespective of whether the mines were profitable or not. The trouble had been that many of the mines had been economically unsound, and did not pay. This was now being rectified and the whole position placed upon a sound economic basis.

Then Mr. Lloyd George, who really knew nothing about the subject, had declared that electricity was going to prove the solution of the mining pro* blem. As a matter of fact, said Mr. Ellis, hydro-electrical companies had long ago harnessed what little water power was available in England, and, Mr. Lloyd George, at great expense to the nation, had erected electrical works at many places which were unsuitable and unprofitable. The nation had got tired of all this tinkering with industry by hot-air politicians, and this was the reason why there had been such a pronounced swing of the pendulum at last elections in Great Britain towards a sound and stable Government, which would permit industrialists to get down to work without vexatious interference. "All that Britain asks,” he declared, “is to be left alone to work.”

All’s Well With England. The Yorkshire M.P. ridiculed the suggestion that Britain had lost the industrial supremacy of the world. “We have the greatest engineers and inventors in the world to-day,” he stoutly declared. “There was a great outcry a short time ago because America dumped boots and shoes into England. People cried out for protection, but the British boot manufacturers never complained They set to work and improved upon the American machinery and th?“ American boot, and actually dumped a better boot down upon America. The Nation, under such a sound Prime Minister as Mr. Baldwin, had quiet confidence, and had settled down to work. They could not expect to recover from such a knock-down blow as the wat in a few years, but England was on her feet again, and no one need have anv concern for her ultimate regeneration.

Referring to agricultural conditions in England, Mr. Ellis said that Australia and New -Zealand, with their genial .climate, could produce primary products much cheaper than could be done in Britain, whose stock had to be stall-fed for several months of the year. Land in New Zealand, however, in his opinion, was much too dear, and we would have to get rid of inflated values, and realise that land was only worth what could be taken off it.

Mr. Ellis, who is accompanied by his brother, will spend some six weeks in New Zealand. He stated that the British Prime Minister (Mr. Baldwin) was keenly desirous that as many members of the House of Commons as possible should visit the overseas dominions.