BRITISH BUILDING

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 124, 21 November 1935, Page 25

BRITISH BUILDING

HUGE PROGRAMMES EMPLOYMENT INCREASES The most outstanding feature of the industrial situation in Great Britain was the size and extent of the building boom, said the Hon. Mark Fagan, M.L.C., at the meeting of the Wellington Harbour Board last night. Virtually, he said, England was in process of being completely rebuilt, and afforded an outstanding example of the tremendous spread of employment as a result of capital being.invested in the building industry. The unspent income, or the savings of the people of Great Britain, amounted to roughly £250,000,000 annually, and a large proportion of this wealth, formerly loaned to other countries, was now being invested in the building industry at home.

"Unemployment figures showed a decrease of nearly one million during the past two years," said Mr. Fagan, "and undoubtedly the building boom was responsible for at least 80 per cent, of this very welcome improvement. Official figures issued show that the building industry, together with ancillary industries .working practically exclusively for the former, accounts for an increase in employment for 320,000 people, and, if you add to this figure the additional number to whom the building boom has given employment in the steel industry, mining and quarrying, textile industries (fabrics, curtains, carpets), chemicals, paint, transport, etc., one could easily visualise a total ■ increase of employment of over 500,000 directly ascribable to the building boom. If you further consider that the spending of the additional wages of this number of people gives again employment to probably an equivalent number, you will realise the extent to which the building industry has been responsible for the very welcome improvement in the unemployment situation in England."