BRITAIN RECONVERTING HER INDUSTRY TO POST-WAR NEEDS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22622, 27 April 1948, Page 4

BRITAIN RECONVERTING HER INDUSTRY TO POST-WAR NEEDS

THE WAR cost Britain a quarter of her national wealth.... The bulk of her investments overseas in order to buy supplies. . . . Britain in effect is still in the delay action stage of the war. A steep climb lies ahead, but there are encouraging signs of progress.

THOSE were some of the points made last night by the United Kingdom High Commissioner in New Zealand, Sir Patrick Duff, when addressing members of the Gisborne Chamber of Commerce. The effect of the war on the postwar recovery of the victorious Allies varied widely, he pointed out. For some countries, apart from the fighting forces which they put into the field, their most helpful contribution was to go on producing, only more abundantly, the same or prouue.s similar to those which they made in peace time. The United States of America and New Zealand were cases in point: and thus their financial position and the mechanism of their domestic industry at the end of the war was relatively stronger, and more favourably placed than it was at the start. The contribution which Britain nad to make was of a very different order. She had to sacrifice the buik of her investments overseas in order to buy supplies demanded by the common war effort: she had to put the bulk of her domestic industry out of commission for its pre-war commercial use and change over the plant for the production of munitions of war. British factories had produced, in fact, seven-tenths of all the supplies used by the 8,750,000 men in the armed forces of the British Commonwealth and Empire. Her industries, when the cease fire sounded, had in large measure to be reconverted again before they could produce the peace-time exports on which so much of her livelihood and earning power depended. Dollar-earning Investments Sold Britain, to help pay for the war, had sold £1,000,000,000 worth of her investment income. Many of the investments so sold were dollar-earning. Before Ihe war her overseas investments provided a net annual income sufficient to buy 20 per cent of her imports. Today, the reduced income bought less than five per cent. "Physical damage by war has had an effect on our power to produce; and in addition has created a top priority claim on the resources that were available after the war," continued Sir Patrick. “Bombs, shells, mines and torpedoes, destroyed 18,000,000 tons of British shipping (with their cargoes of £700,000.000) and demolished or damaged 25,000 factories and 4,000,000 houses (a cost of £1,500.000,000), a total damage of £2,200,000.000. The restoration of these has been and is making heavy demands on steel and man-power and so directly reduces our export potential. “The same result follows from the urgent need to catch up after the war with £900,000,000 of arrears of maintenance, repair and replacement in factories. mines, railways, docks, gas works and power stations “In order to try to “neg” peace and security for the BHtish ‘Commonwealth and Empire and for the world, Britain today, at a time when she herself needs every pair of hands for the resuscitation of her industry and experts, still i'.a.s to keep nearly a million men in her armed forces, mostly in overseas territories, garrisons and' the like. At

a time when his financial resources have been most seriously drained by war expenditures and sacrifices, the United Kingdom taxpayer, for the safety of all partners in the British Commonwealth and Empire as well as for Great Britain, has to maintain these forces, with the Navy and Air Forces which support them and all the world-long pipe-lines of communication and supply. “We are seeking ways and means of reducing, at any rate temporarily, those heavy drains on our man-power and finance: but there seems no likelihood in the near future of the world being in such a state 1 of peace and stability that Britain can plan to have by March 1949, a lesser total in her armed forces thereafter than about 750,000 men, maintained at a total cost of about £700,000,000 sterling.” After the very unequal sacrifices and wounds suffered by the people of the United Kingdom in the war and amid the very unequal burdens which they carried still in the common cause, the claims of Great Britain’s own rehabilitation and of her own social services brought powerful arguments to bear on her in favour of economies on defence. British Heart Still Strong “It is very difficult under such continuing and such unequal burdens; it is very difficult after such severe and unequal disablements and sacrifices in the recent war, for Great Britain to spring immediately after the cease fire sounds into the full flow of commercial production. And. it is naturally disappointing to people who have endured such dangers and hardships and privations for such long war years to find that the cease fire has brought them so little domestic alleviation. “A general improvement, however, has been made up of countless slowlygrowing small improvements too little and slow and scattered to be noticed by people struggling year by year and still struggling with such severe day to day conditions: and it is only someone who has been away and. on return, sees in the aggregate the difference between things today and things half-way through 1945, who is fully conscious how far we have climbed since then. “There are a number of unmistakeable and encouraging signs of progress. Britain produces more steel than before the war. The output of commercial vehicles is 20 per cent higher than a year ago and one-third more than prewar. No less than 53 per cent of the entire world construction of merchant shipping is in British yards. Visible import and export levels have begun to move towards each other. We are breasting the hill. The climb is steep. The road is heavy going. There'are a lot of awkward corners. But the engine—the British heart—is pulling well." Sir Patrick Duff was welcomed by the president of the Gisborne chamber, Mr. T. A. N. Corson, who referred to the High Commissioner’s recent visit to England and expressed the hope that he would take the members into his confidence in regard to conditions in Britain today. The Mayor, Mr. N. H. Bull, also welcomed Sir Patrick, referring to the fact that he and Lady Duff would always be welcome in Gisborne. A hearty vote of thanks, proposed by Mr. F. Tolerton. was carried by acclamation.