Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1932 WANTED—CONFIDENCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 23, 23 December 1932, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1932 WANTED—CONFIDENCE.

There is not lacking- in Britain to-day a considerable section of well-informed people who take a hopeful view of tiie near future. They are mostly men in business or financial circles who perceive a widening- of the break in the gray clouds of depression that have enveloped the world for the past three years. It is a welcome sign after the trials and tribulations that have beset business. The pi'esent generation have known nothing to compare with the times through which we have been and are still passing, but the older people recall the great depression of the nineties, and some go further back to other troublous and difficult times. The men and women of those days had a dire struggle, but they steadfastly set their faces towards the period of prosperity to come. The many changes in this century —machinery in the workshops to lighten the workman’s labours; the striking advance in transport methods; the greater facilities for pleasure have undoubtedly wroug-ht such a tremendous change in the lives of people that they find great difficulty in reconciling themselves to the present order—doing without things which to them have become a daily order, and yet are still a luxury. A sense of false prosperity, has been built up at least in this Dominion, and its people are suffering the more greatly in consequence. But it is well to turn back the pages of history and glimpse a little of the conditions which beset our nation in the past. “There is scarcely anything around us but ruin and despair,” said William Pitt in 1798, and two years later Wilberforce declared that he dare not worry, the future was too black. “Everything is headed to a revolution” was the belief of Lord Grey in 1819, and little more than a .quarter of a century had elapsed when Lord Shaftesbury expressed a similar view, saying that nothing could save the Empire from shipwreck. In the same year Disraeli could see' no hope in industry, commerce and agriculture, and the great Duke of Wellingtqn thanked God that he “might be spared from seeing the consummation of ruin that was gathering- around them everywhere.” These men of outstanding ability in the nation’s affairs were proved to be wholly wrong. The Empire is greater, more firmly welded, and the strongest force for good in the world to-day than it has ever been before. In recalling these prophecies of pessimism, and how they w-ere confounded, at _ a meeting- of linen interests in London recently, the secretary of the City of London Wholesale Linen Trade Association (Mr J. H. Hewett) spoke in most encouraging manner of the industry’s future. The export trade, he said, is much better, and though they faced difficulties in the home trade he was certain that it would come right in time. It was most likely that a substantial amount of money received by investors who had not converted their war loan stock would be re-invested in industrial enterprise, and this would give a fillip to trade. If that happened, Mr Hewett added,

they stood a good chance of seeing a big- revival of trade, and he urged the company to maintain a bright spirit. The trade in Belfast, it was reported at the same gathering, was much happier than a few months ago. Orders in hand ,in November were a third larger than July’s, and there were encouraging reports for next year, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand buying well. British overseas trade, taking the latest returns as a guide, is brighter, exports having considerably advanced in value in the months of October and November, while imports are considerably contracted, thus reducing the heavy adverse balance of other years when invisible exports, now of greatly reduced value, brought wealth to British people. New Zealand deriving its wealth nearly wholly from the soil, is suffering more acutely .than other countries with industries to support a large part of the people, but notwithstanding the sharp contraction in values our exports for eleven months are greater by nearly two million pounds than those of the similar period last year, while imports are less by a similar sum. What is required is faith in the future. - “The days when big profits can be made out of land values are past,” said Professor Peren when speaking of our basic industry in a recent address. “Henceforth profits will be determined by ability to farm well.” In this way Professor Peren sees a bright future for those who realise the force of this assertion. Only with faith and the determination to work hard manifest on all sides will New Zealand be well equipped for the days of prosperity when they return.