ON THE UP GRADE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 30 January 1928, Page 9

ON THE UP GRADE

AFTER THE FALSE DAWN BRITISH TRADE REVIVAL. PREDICTION BY ROYALTY. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION- -COPYRIGHT Received 2.30 p.m. to-day. LONDON, Jan. 20. “We have sat long in the sombre darkness of post war depression, deluded more than once by what was proved Mi be only a false dawn and we nave learnt to mistrust the * prophets. Heaven forbid that 1 prophesy, but we have never lost/ hope. We have hind on, grinned and born, it. May ,be vv e are now going to get our reward,” said tlie Prince of Wales, in what is agreed to bo the best speech of his career at a banquet of the Birmingham Jewel lens’ and Silversmiths’. Association. The Prince said the recent trade returns showed that, despite black spots on the business horizon and despite tlie handicap under which we had started work at the end of 1920, when many markets were temporarily lost, we had really wiped out all the deficit a.nd started on the up grade again. Einployers and employed had come to see that the fundamental interests in large production and thriving trades were the same. , , The Prince humorously remarked Chat the invitation to Birmingham made him feel he was regarded at least as eighteen carat. Their industry was the oldest of human handicrafts, though he could not say positively whether the idea of earrings predated the idea of a pair of trousers. He had certainly noticed that, excavations indicated the first job of the prehistoric craftsman was to. attractively ornament his lady friends. . .. . , Describing how man became inflicted with the untold misery of the armoiir plated boiled shirt, he said it was the jewellers who invented studs when it was found, a century ago, that a new tangled invention, namely the mangle, smashed buttons on our ancestors comfortable, soft-pleated shirts. Studs would not stay put in a soft shirt, so it was decided to.have starched fronts.