"DOLE SAVED ENGLAND"

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 23, 28 January 1935, Page 13

"DOLE SAVED ENGLAND"

REV. REDGRAVE'S VIEW The dole undoubtedly saved England from a revolution, in the' opinion of the Rev. F. B. Redgrave, vicar of the Fendalton parish, who has returned to! Christchurch after ten months' stay at Home. Mr. Bedgrave pointed out in an interview that while there had been a big improvement in the south of England, the mining, shipbuilding, and cotton industries wore still suffering considerably from the depression, states tho "Christchurch Star." Mr. Redgrave said that h© visited tho town of Jarrow, where' the peoplo had been mainly dependent on the building of small cargo steamers. Not a single vessel had been built for years, an# 90 per cent, of the men wero on the dole. The building of larger vessels did not affect them, and improvement in trade, only meant the recommissioning of tramp steamers which had been laid aside. In Durham and the adjoining mining centres hundreds of men and boys were to be seen on the street corners vainly waiting for jobs. Many married men with children had never done a day's work in their lives. Some parishes were almost entirely on the dole. In Blackburn, Preston, and other cotton towns, said Mr. Redgrave, mills had been put up for auctioti without reserve, and no bids had been forthcoming. Tho. people, seemed to have lost heart, feeling that the cotton trade had been definitely captured by the Japanese, Mr. Redgrave said that the recent visit of the Prince of Wales to Durham had brought home to Londoners and to the House of Commons the necessity for doing something to relieve these serious economic conditions.