The Dominion SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1926. BRITAIN’S UPHILL BATTLE

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 155, 27 March 1926, Page 8

The Dominion SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1926. BRITAIN’S UPHILL BATTLE

At the beginning of each year, the chairmen of the leading British banks are wont to engage in a broad survey of the outlook in trade and industry. In their speeches this year these authorities apparently were of one mind in sounding a note of moderate but confident optimism. If the hopes raised by the bank chairmen are realised, the current year should witness a fairly considerable expansion of British export trade, and a corresponding reduction in the heavy adverse balance of trade recorded in 1925. Even financial authorities, who consider that the restoration of the gold standard in the early part of last year was premature and ill-advised are of opinion that the handicap thus imposed on British export trade was temporary and is no longer seriously felt. Subject to one rather important reservation, there is a good deal to support the favourable estimates of British trade prospects that are now general. The reservation relates to the present situation in the coal industry. A peaceful adjustment of the existing dispute evidently cannot be taken for granted. Yet it is only too clear that a prolonged coal strike would upset whatever hopes are now being entertained of a sustained revival of trade and industry in Great Britain. The problems raised in the British coal industry appear almost to defy solution. The wages of the miners admittedly are at a very low level, actually'and relatively to those of other workers. With the cost of living index showing an increase of 76 per cent, over pre-war prices, British miners are getting only 66 per cent, in excess of what they received in 1914- It aggravates the situation that workers who handle coal after it leaves the pits are receiving far greater wage-increases than the men who extract it. The railwaymen’s increase on pre-war rates, for example, is 130 per cent., that of labourers 137.5, and that of dockers 145. To this it has to be added, however, that in recent times a heavy State subsidy has been needed to enable the coal industry to pay even the poor wages the miners are now receiving. The proposal of the British Government to give effect to the report of the recent Coal • Commission offers no early remedy for this unfortunate state of affairs. Until the problems of the coal industry have been dealt with decisively in some fashion, any opinion with regard to the immediate outlook for British trade can only be provisional. It _is already clear, however, that Britain has made wonderful progress in economic and financial recovery, and this by unaided and self-reliant efforts which may well command the admiration of the world. In the midst of her own.difficulties, the Mother Country has set unexampled standards of generosity in her dealings with debtor nations. During tlie war period, she advanced approximately two thousand millions sterling to her European allies. Of this vast sum rather more than one-half was drawn from her own resources, and the remaining part was borrowed from America. Britain has laid down the principle that she will seek to obtain from her Allied debtors and in reparations from Germany combined no more than will balance her repayment of this debt to the United States. That is to say, she has written off the sum of upwards of a thousand millions sterling advanced out of her own resources, and in addition is resigning all claim to her share of German reparations. As yet Britain has hardly begun to collect anything that can be set against her debt repayments to America. She has concluded a debt-funding agreement with Italy, however, and if she reaches a similar agreement this year with France will obtain a measure of financial relief. The progress Britain has made thus far in her bravely fought battle against post-war depression and bad times is, the more remarkable since she is handicapped by a trade policy which is manifestly obsolete. Her unprotected markets were flooded last year by foreign manufactures valued at 320 millions sterling, or not far from the value of her own total export of manufactures to foreign countries (as distinct from countries within the Empire)- That fact in itself plainly indicates that Britain would best ensure her future prosperity by protecting her home market and concentrating on the development of inter-imperial trade. The immediate condition of her continued economic recovery, however, is the maintenance of industrial peace. In their own interests, as well as out of sympathy with their kinsfolk in the Homeland, the people o r this country and other Dominions are bound to hope that the difficult and perplexing problems now raised in the British coal industry may be adjusted peacefully.