NEW OUTLOOK

Evening Star, Issue 25926, 18 October 1946, Page 7

NEW OUTLOOK

END OF "COCK-EYED" ECONOMY EVEN FULL EMPLOYMENT NOT ENOUGH (Rec. 11.20 a.m.) LONDON, Oct. 17. The number of workers in Britain engaged in producing goods for home consumption in August exceeded for the first time the 1930 level. Ministry of Labour statistics show that workers producing goods not intended for export totalled 2,481,000, which is 205,000 higher , than the 1939 figure. The ''number of workers engaged in manufacturing for export also increased —by 385,000 to 1,375,000. The Ministry also reports that 359,206 persons registered as unemployed by September 16, including 33,000 ex-service personnel who have not resumed work since being discharged. Mr Herbert Morrison in a speech said the Government would soon have a long list of projects blue-printed waiting for investment and man power resources to carry them out. These projects included the building of roads, railways, afforestation, ports, air fields, industrial plants, national parks, and public

buildings. ’ The Government so far had been forced to concentrate so largely on short-term problems that they had hardly begun to get the benefit of longterm planning. Fulfilment of the major part of the economic plans.depended oh the actions of the workers and employers. Therefore, control by a few persons sitting in Whitehall would not be enough. Planning must be inspired from the consumer end if it were not to be bureaucratic and inefficient. _ The Government was developing machinery for tripartite contracts between the Government, the workers, and employers. “ In the cock-eyed economy of the ’thirties people imagined that the great problem was the abolition of unemployment,” said Mr Morrison. “ To-day we know even full employment is not enough. We must secure a output of goods and services all round for a decent standard of life, fair shares for all, and adequate incentives for the effort.”