BRITISH TRADE STILL MOVES UPWARD

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 41, 12 November 1936, Page 11

BRITISH TRADE STILL MOVES UPWARD

Home Industries Active

REARMAMENT NOT YET A FACTOR By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. (Received November 11, 5.5 p.m.) Rugby, November 10. The .statement that "all available data points to the continuance of the upward trend of British trade as a whole,” made by the Prime Minister. Mr. Baldwin, last night, was reinforced by the employment returns published to-day. These showed a marked increase on the figures of the preceding month, and an increase of nearly 60.000 on those of a year ago. Not since .March, 1930. has the unemployment figure been so low as at present, and in that year the industrial population was considerably smaller. Mr. Baldwin emphasised the desire of the British Government to support all well-conceived efforts to remove obstacles to international trade. Suggestions that the steady improvement in the home industries was attributable to Britain's accelerated defence measures were repudiated by the Minister of' Labour, Mr. Brown, in the House of Commons last night. Rearmament. he said, bad hardly yet contributed to this state of affairs, which was mainly due to private enterprise. The change even in two years was gratifying. The iron and steel industry and the shipbuilding industry, then still depressed, had now made a substantial recovery. Special areas, except in the south of Wales. were growing smaller. Even in Jarrow unemployment bad fallen from 7600 to 3897. The surviving depression was mainly due to difficulties in the coal export trade. Efforts were being made to overcome them.