BOGY OF FINANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 102, 2 May 1941, Page 8

BOGY OF FINANCE

THE WAR DAMAGE

EXPERT'S REASSURANCE

POWER OF RECOVERY

(0.C.)

LONDON, April 3,

"Don't be deceived by the bogy of finance. It is no longer what, it was: Today it rears only a timid head; that I is not the way it behaved in 1918 and 1919." This remark was made by : Mr. J. M. Keynes, the authority on finance, in an address in London. He spoke at the Housing Centre to an audience which consisted chiefly of experts. Lord Balfour, who presided, described Mr. Keynes's remarks as "a breath of fresh air." Speaking on post-war reconstruction, Mr. Keynes said that it was the physical things that would matter most —man-power and will-power, and capacity to have the necessary materials, j Mr. Keynes -claimed that the war did not in itself greatly diminish the national wealth. "If we could turn cottages into tanks, we should, do it. But we can't." The greater part of the war effort "has to be currently produced." He thought the injuries caused by submarines and aeroplanes j greatly exaggerated. CAPACITY OF SHIPYARDS. In the first year of the war British ; shipping had not lost more, or even j ■as much, as had been produced in a j good shipbuilding year, such as 1929. J The capacity to replace allsuch losses j was great. Even the damage from the air to housing was greatly exaggerated by everybody because it struck so much people's imagination. "All the damage hitherto done scarce-1 ly exceeds, or even reaches, a full year's building capacity in Britain." j This in effect meant that the value of the present built property was what j it was in 1933. Taking as a sample J a representative institution concerned with buildings in large areas of England, including London and the Mid- j lands, Mr. Keynes suggested that the property demolished or badly damaged j did not exceed 1 per cent, of the total, j It was true, he said, that the percentage in London was much higher than this estimated average. However, miich of the property destroyed was of small value, and ssuch damage was up to a point an opportunity! Only if the damage went a great deal further —four or six times —could the matter become serious. REBUILDING OF TOWNS. Speaking of reconstruction, Mr. Keynes reiterated that finance was not the main problem. "We must go ahead," he said, "on the basis of the physical realities of the situation. . . . I am inclined to say that the difficulties after the war will arise not from the greatness of the damage done as from its insufficiency in the sense that in only few places has Hitler made I a clean job of it." Mr. Keynes dealt more particularly with London, where, he said, a great deal of space was being wastefully employed by decrepit,property. The re- , building of London would have to be considered "in fairly large units," and a five- or ten-year programme should be established which would go far beyond the mere repair of damage. He was against nationalisation of the land, but thought there should bo "special; powers over any scheduled land." j As regards the valuation of property. I he thought the complaints against the War Damage Bill unjustified. Assessment on the basis of the March, 1939, value, he thought, was a fine principle to which we ought to stick. Speaking on further improvements after the war, Mr. Keynes suggested the building of-numerous theatres, but with "an inverse entertainments tax," which would encourage good shows and discourage bad ones. "There is no reason," he concluded, "why we should not produce a memorial to the times we have lived through as good as Wren's but far exceeding it in scope i and magnificence/*