INDUSTRIAL PEASE

Evening Star, Issue 19777, 30 January 1928, Page 8

INDUSTRIAL PEASE

A PraSUIG OUTLOOK'

PRIHSE IN HUMOROUS VEIN

Press Association —By Telegraph-Copyright.

LONDON, January 2A

(Received January 30. at U a.m.) “We have sal long ' n ie fcom ' ,ro darkness of post-war depression, deluded more than once liy what proved to be only a false dawn. AVc have learned to mistrust the prophets, and heaven forbid that 1 shall Prophesy, but wo have never lost hope. We have held on, grinned, and borne it. May be wo arc now going to get our reward,” said the Prince of Wales in what is agreed to bo the best speech of his career at a banquet given by the Birmingham Jewellers’ and Sihersmiths’ Association.

The Prince said the recent trade returns showed that despite black spots on the business horizon and despite the handicap under which they had started work at the end of 1920, when many markets wore temporarily lost, they had really wiped out all the delicit and had started on the up grade again. Employers and employed had come to see that the fundamental interests in largo production and thriving trade were the same. The meeting at Burlington House gave the strongest reason for hope that a now era of prosperity was opening. The Prince humorously remarked that the invitation to Birmingham made him feel that lie was regarded as at least 18-carat. He said ils industry was the oldest of human handicraft. Though ho could not say positively that the idea of earrings predated the idea of trousers, he had certainly noticed that the excavations had indicated that the first job of the prc-lus-toric craftsman was attractively to ornament his lady friends. Describing how man became inflicted with the untold misery of the armorplated boiled shirt, the Prince said it was the jewellers who invented the stud. When it was found a century ago that a new-fangled invention—namely, the mangle—had smashed buttons on our ancestors’ comfortable soft-pleated shirts and that studs would not “stay put” in the soft shirt, it was decided to starch the fronts.

LAST YEAR’S RECORD

(British Official News.) Press Association—By Wireless—Copyright.

RUGBY. January 29, (Received January 30, at 1 p.m.)

The number of clays of work lost in Great Britain through industrial disputes was last year the lowest for the whole of the period for which statistics are available —namely, forty years. The Minister of Labor (Sir Arthur, Steel Maitland) made this statement in a speech at Lichfield last night, in which he said that all the signs pointed to happier times ahead for Great Britain. There were 500,000 more men and women employed in the insured trades than there were four years ago, and there was an increase of 100,000,000 in the number of days worked. He warmly commended the joint efforts of the Tracies Union Council and an influential

body of employers to establish industrial pence on the basis of co-operation. Imperial Chemical Industries. Limited, has issued particulars of an employees’ shareholding scheme, which has been framed with the object of enabling employees to become personally interested in the fortunes of their business. Shares will he acquired at 2s.(id less than the market price, and may be paid for by instalments spread over two years, no interest being dun god on the amount outstanding. Should a subscribing employee die the outstanding instalments will be met by the company, and the shares included in the employee's estate.