OWN PEOPLE FIRST

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 131, 30 November 1933, Page 13

OWN PEOPLE FIRST

COST IN ECONOMICS

UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM

(From "The Post's" Representative) LONDON, bctober 3. Sir William. Morris, president of the league of Industry, was a speaker at Burton on the subject of unemployment. It was his opinion that one of the best ways to effect a cure was that the people of tKis country should team to use and consumo the manufactures of their own people. „* "When I think of the number of things we are buying aud consuming in this country made by foreigners, it positively makes mo sick," he said. "By that I am- not suggesting that we tax raw materials which we cannot possibly produce in this country. Many of our manufacturers are almost put out of existence by the manufactures produced by the foreigners at a wage of lid-an hour. • ■ _ "Is it not time—apart from Tree Trade or Tariff Reform—that those manufactures should bo cut out in this country? It is true that we cannot produce oil, but we have coal. Why cannot we use the products of coal, even though they make it a little more expensive? It may be a little Uetter for a few of us to use oil which is produced by the foreigner, but is it not better in the long run to pay a little more for our'own products, though I do not agree that gas costs more than oil? "In Birmingham we use two and a half million feet of gas per annum in place of oil, and I say that we are saving money hy using gas, which is produced from coal. It is not for. us to look to tho foreigner to out our prices down. He will never help us, believe me. I hope by the time we arrive at next year's conference we shall ha.ye found that we can uso many things wKich we produce in. preference to the foreigner's goods."

It was unanimously decided to appoint a committee to bring plans before next year's conference to deal with, unemployment.

Mr. H. J. Plant, of the Potteries, protested against the menace of Japanese competition to the British pottery trade, and produced china manufactured in Japan to prove his case. He showed a cup and saucer sold together at 3d which bore the imprint "Made in England"—a clever evasion, he said, of the regulation making it necessary to state the place of origin of the article. Another cup and saucer sold at 3d bore the one word "York."

"Japanese competition," he added, '.'is a real menaco to British workers, because Japanese wages are so low, their rate of exchange so low, and their methods are so low. These cups and saucers are identical in design with British pottery, which sells at Is 3d a cup and saucer."