TRADE IN ENGLAND.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 2 August 1924, Page 13

TRADE IN ENGLAND.

RECOVERY of lost MARKETS. Trade conditions in England, said Mr J. H. Goddard, of a Leicester firm of woodworking machinery engineers, to a Dominion reporter, were fast improving. Englanu had very good opportunities in Australia and New Zealand to recover a good deal of the trade which had been lost to America during the war and the years after it. An attempt wa,s being made in this direction, through lowering the cost of production, not by lowering wages, but by improving the conditions ol : manufacturing and the maintenance of a better supply ol goods. There was a far greater tendency to-day, also, far English manufacturers to send representatives out to the Dominions and dependencies to make a study for themselves of the conditions of overseas markets. England was already receiving the benefit from such a policy. The British Government, he said, was intent on lowering the cost of production, and the people of England did not. look on the preference proposals from any other point- of view than that they would add to tbp already excessive high cost of living. English people appreciated to the full the splendid support given by the Dominions to the; Mother Country throughout the war, but they did not feel themselves justified in conceding higher prices for the commodities because of it.

The great barrier to England getting back to normal conditions, Air Goddard explained, was the adverse exchange between England and America, and between America and European countries. This caused foodstuffs and raw materials imported into England from America to* be procurable only at- a high cost, and prevented English manufacturers from selling their goods in Europe l as readily as did the Americans. Other serious difficulties were the inflated state of the currency in European countries, the lack of real efforts to refund or reduce their debts; the fact- that their taxation and their debt- was not anywhere as high as in England; and that the interest alone on England’s debt to the United States, which she was trying so hard to reduce, was enormous.

The English people, in his opinion, had no sympathy with France’s occupation of the Ruhr. Trade must be reciprocal, and they believed that France, pursuing a, policy o*f revenge, was preventing Germany from taking her place as a trading nation. When the German currency became so inflated that it assumed the proportions of a balloon, certain manufactures from that country were dumped into* . England. That practice had now nearly ended, since aAempts had been made to deflate the currency to get it back to normal. It wa.s undoubted that Germany was passing- through a very troublous time that there was unemployment within her borders, and that bankruptcies were common. That would continue, said Mr Goddard, until such time as the deflation of the currency was complete, and that would have to go through the process. England had almost gone through, it. In manufactures, said Mr. Goddard England still pursued the intensive methods adopted during the war, but in agriculture she was doing less than in war time. Engnslt workmanship was fully up to pre-war standard, and the output and quality were equally as high as before the war. The dc»le system in England was being continued among the unemployed, of whom there were still about 1,000,000. It was a distinct disadvantage, both nationally and individually, undermining as it did the moral fibre of the man who got it for doing nothing. Yet, while unemployment lasted, it was difficult to find a wfty of getting rid of it. There was the danger, too, that skilled men, through unemployment were losing some, of their skill. Insufficient apprentices were now being trained, and when trade really did improve there might he a shortage of skilled labour. This, however, would probably be overcome by improvement in methods of manufacture in such a way that less skill would he -required on the part of the operators.