INDUSTRY IN BRITAIN.

Evening Star, Issue 19931, 30 July 1928, Page 6

INDUSTRY IN BRITAIN.

Three cables from London this weekend concern three of the largest Indus tries in Britain—transport, coal mining, and textiles. The railwayman have agreed to accept a reduction of wages, the coal mine owners aro trying to arrange a cartel, and,the Lancashire master cotton spinners have decided to look nt their employees. The first-named arrangement has been hailed as a triumph for British common sense Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and the railwayman have evidently been convinced from their own observation that unless working costs are reduced the competition of other forms of transport threatens their means of livelihood with steady restriction pointing to extinction. The same thing, reduction of wages, was accepted by the coal miners after a great struggle, but it does not seem to have led to any great improvement in this latter industry, the future of which is still ' very uncertain. By latest advices, employment in . the mines is still falling. This is partly due to the weeding out of uneconomic pits, a process facilitated by a number of district amalgamations which have taken place with the object of reducing working costs to permit of recapture of some of the lost .export trade. Already some selling organisations have been in operation, but the results of the marketing pools, especially in South. Wales and the Midlands, are understood to have been disappointing. Now it is proposed to form one big pool for the whole of Britain. As to the cotton industry, it has been flying signals of distress for many months. Over-capitalisation during the post-war boom wiis the start of its troubles, and since then there has been a dispiriting record of dwindling export returns, particularly in respect of the Far East. Tho British trado Ims suffered from tho growth of manufacture in consuming countries and from tho increased severity of competition of other exporting countries in many markets.' Unless some very radical changes are brought about in what Britain has heretofore regarded as key industries, it appears as though in future less reliance will need to be placed on increasing exports against powerful competition and more attention be paid to reducing imports, so that the country may be able to pay its way. Meanwhile agriculture m Britain, the industry which would enable this to be done, remains itself in a most depressed state.