OPTIMISTIC NOTE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 28, 3 January 1931, Page 7

OPTIMISTIC NOTE

THE PRESENT YEAR. ENGLISH PRESS PREDICTIONS. ECONOMIC READJUSTMENT. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, Jan. 2. The Financial News expresses the opinion that 1931 will witness not only the turning point, but also the traversing of an appreciable stretch on the upward course.

The Financial Times sees indications that 1931 will prove another and, perhaps, final' phase in economic readjustment. Co-operation between Capital and Labour is needed to a greater extent than ever, the paper asserts. The Morning Post says: “There are two main causes of depression : Socialism, which means wages without work, and Communism, meaning work without wages. World conditions are to Mr Ramsay MacDonald what predestination was to his Calvinist forefathers, namely, a sufficient substitute for good works.’ NATIONAL SAVINGS. CERTIFICATE FOR THE KING. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Jan. 2. His Majesty the King will be presented next week with the representation of the 1,000,000,000 th National Savings Certificate sold. The certificate will be mounted and appropriately inscribed. About one hundred and seventy thousand National Savings Certificates are sold daily. The purchase price of the thousand million certificates sold since February, 1916, when they were - first put on the market, amounts to £786,000,000 The present weekly average of sales is the highest for many years.

CONTROL OF GOLD

FRANCE AND BRITAIN TO CONFER

LONDON, Jan. 2. The Times’s correspondent in Paris says that French and British Treasury officials are conferring on January 2 for the purpose of preparing an agenda for conversations to be held later in London to promote closer co-operation between the London and Paris money markets, especially giving attention to the control of gold and the drain from London, which is inconveniencing both sides of the Channel.

BRITISH AGRICULTURE. CO-OPERATION ESSENTIAL FOR REVIVAL. LONDON Jan. 1. “There is real danger in doing things for people instead of the people doing things for themselves,”, writes Mr Philip Snowden, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in “The Faith of a Democrat,” one of a book of essays just published. “Self-reliant, self-respecting, independent people are rendered unreasonable by spoon-feeding.” Mr Snowden describes the British farmer as “a survivor of mediaevalism,” and says: “The first essential for a revival of British agriculture is cooperation.” Mr A. V. Alexander, a member of the Cabinet, in an essay on “Parliament and the Consumer,” describes Britain as '‘in, 'immediate danger of being subordinated to what would amount to a general tariff. ‘No taxation without representation’ clearly becomes a watchword of consumers, who are at present mulcted every year in new impositions of taxation on daily needs.”

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. GOOD PROGRESS MADE. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Jan. 2. In spite of the industrial depression the friendly societies have made progress, both numerically and financially, during the year 1930. When National Health Insurance was brought into existence it was generally believed that the friendly societies were doomed, instead of which they are to-day much stronger in membership and have nearly doubled their cash reserves in the eighteen years they have had to meet competition. This is largely due to the fact that the societies, by the careful husbanding of their resources, are able to offer large benefits to insured members. There are now about ten million workers making independent insurance against illness and disablement, and their aggregate reserves are about £100,000,000. Their payments for sickness and for all benefits made a grand total of about £7,000,000 during 1930. AIRCRAFT EXPORTS. DOUBLED IN 1930. RUGBY, Jan. 2. Despite the world depression, Britain has, during 1930, doubled her aircraft exports. Three of the largest orders ever sent abroad by any foreign Power have been placed in England for the latest military aeroplanes of the interceptor fighter class, of which two types have been developed during the year. Tkey are capable of speeds exceeding Mo miles nn hour, and possess a remarkably rapid rate of climb. Another factor in the increased aircraft export trade is the popularity of efficient light aeroplanes.