POSITION AT HOME

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3440, 8 March 1932, Page 7

POSITION AT HOME

COMPARED WITH EUROPE. TOO MUCH SPENDING. "STANDARD OF EXTRAVAGANCE." . Standard of extravagance, not standard of living, was the phrase used in referring to English conditions by Mr. Cyrus J. B. Williams, former engineer for 25 years to the Lyttelton Harbour Board, who returned to Wellington by the' Monowai after a year spent at Home and on the Continent. Having made extended tours on both sides of the Channel, Mr. Williams had a good opportunity of comparing England with the Continent. While people in England appeared to be spending, he said, on the Continent they appeared to be producing. He regarded it as vitally necessary that the standard of extravagance in England and her Dominions should be checked, and believed also that no real rise in the price level would occur in the near future.

"I am an engineer," Mr. Williams said, "but I did not go with the idea of seeing engineering works—that was a very subsidiary thing. We were more interested in the state and social conditions of the people of the various countries we travelled through. In England a thing that struck me particularly was the amount of complaining that I heard of the want of wealth and other things, in spite of the apparent 'squandermania' that was going on. No other country has it. Everybody says trade is down, and of trade figures show that it is down, and the condition of England is causing anxiety to the people who live in it. Yet no one there seems to be taking Steps to put it right. Of course the National Government is getting a move on. But the problem before it is a very difficult one. If you noticed the other day the export figures for the Argentine trade with England were largely in excess of those for any British Dominion, and in return for Great Britain's trade the Argentine, instead of encouraging its local industries, is taking British goods in return.

A Stumbling Block

"They are consequently better customers for Great Britain than any of the Dominions," Mr. Williams said. "It is this position of the Argentine which is going to be the greatest stumbling block toward a settlement at the Ottawa Conference. . "A stranger, particularly one who is not going very leisurely, has a good deal of difficulty in judging conditions. But it is obvious that people there are setting to work seriously to produce. What struck me more than anything was the amount of work being done in every European country while England seemed hardly to be doing anything. In England they appeared to be spending; on the Continent they appeared to be producing. Everybody is at work there, on Sunday and holidays just the same almost as on any other day.

As you travel along the roads on week-days you see them all tilling the fields, and on Sundays they are carting the wood or doing some other job for which no time has been available during the week. "There are many conditions one observes on the Continent that one would not like to see in our own countries, such as the amount and kind of labour done by women. I was remarkably impressed by things which I would describe as barn houses—enormous buildings at one end of which the farmer and all his people live while at the other the stock are kept in winter and at night. There is generally a ramp leading up to the first floor for bringing in the grain. So the whole building is a barn, and these houses, instead of being untidy places, are beautifully decorated and painted with perfect pictures. There is a whole community living under one roof.

"Of course in England the great trouble is that the farmer has beautiful crops everywhere, and yet they tell you it hardly pays to harvest them. With imports from Russia and other Continental countries the English farmer is having a very bad time. If you apply protection to his produce you raise the general prices of goods in the community and you are up against the same trouble in some other form. The manufacturer gets into trouble. Almost everywhere I went in England there were vessels laid up. In the 'Gare Loch, on the Clyde, I counted 48 large ships, and the same state of affairs existed at Dartmouth, Plymouth, Penzance and all the big ports. Trade figures tell us why, but it is a disconcerting situation, and it is this want of British trade that is going to prevent the prices of our own exports increasing.

Need for Buckling Down

"It is no use our sitting down and saying that the prices will recover," Mr. Williams said. "I don't think they will, at all events not to any substantial extent. I think that this is really a readjustment of values, and we have go to set ourselves to meet it. It means that the standard of extravagance in England and the Dominions will have to be brought down a little. It is an unpopular view, I know, but I think is it going to take some years to readjust our position. As long as British trade is low prices cannot rise. I don't like to be a pessimist. The British people are so solid and so accustomed to recover from difficult positions that I have no doubt that they will get themselves out of this one; but it is hard to see how it is going to be done. Nevertheless it is comforting to know that they are holding thenown in every form to-day. But there is no doubt that they have set themselves a standard of living and spending which cannot be maintained. You have only to travel through Continental countries to see the difference.