RATIONALISATION AND CAPITAL.

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 119, 22 May 1930, Page 12

RATIONALISATION AND CAPITAL.

linglish industrialists are tuniing more and more to rationalisation as a possible way out of their difficulties, but the problem is to find money to finance comprehensive schemes. A suggestion that' American capital might co-operate in British industry was' made by Sir William Plendcr, president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, in an address at Leicester, when he strongly advocated the introduction of sound and comprehensive rationalisation schemes. He answered the argument that'the country iwas only passing through a period similar to that' following the Napoleonic wars, and that recovery was only a'matter of time, by pointing but the immense growth of the National Debt-and the changes in trading conditions since 1815.. Rationalisation might' involve severe and ruthless methods in eliminating the unfit, but the situation called for drastic measures. Capital might be procured from the shareholders of the companies concerned, or failing that from outside sources, including America. He referred also to .the part that education must play in any permanent trade revival.Scientific knowledge had not been employed in business as much hi England as else- , where, and'owing to 'the. rapid development of modern■ business,the- way to use knowledge was an important as the knowledge itself.'