POSITIVE RECOVERY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 237, 4 September 1933, Page 7

POSITIVE RECOVERY

OPTIMISM IN BRITAIN. BANK AND INDUSTRY REVIEWS. BIG IMPROVEMENT NOTED. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received September 4, 8.5 a.m. LONDON, Sept. 3. The feeling of optimism regarding the trade prospects is spreading, even the bank reviews taking a hopeful view. For instance, tho Midland Bank’s review states that “at long last there is evidence of a substantial and sustained improvement in business. The volume of industrial production is at a higher level than a year or two ago and spread over a wide range of industries. Tho country provincial bank clearings reveal a distinct upward trend. Clearly, the expansive monetary policy pursued for the past year or so is bearing good fruit and we may expect with some confidence that its continuance will produce steadily larger results. “Thero are still, as there must be in a world so full of uncertainties, ample possibilities for setbacks, particularly due to external developments, but it seems reasonable to suppose that the spring of 1933 may prove to have marked a clear beginning to positive recovery,” states the review. According to the official organ of Sheffield, the Journal of Commerce, impressive progress in the face of difficulties is being made by the Sheffield steel and engineering industries. “The second half year has stalled well and an improvement seems assured. The extra steel and products we are making as compared with a year ago account for probably an extra £50,000 a day. This is before the work involved by the increased naval shipbuilding activity is nearly in full swing. The call for armour, guns, projectiles and other high-priced Sheffield products for fifty slaps of war to . be built under the current programme is developing trade, but it is far from the volume it will assume later. There is increased activity in the big works and more workmen are being engaged nearly every day,” the paper states. STOCK EXCHANGE ACTIVITY. August was tho busiest holiday month on the Stock Exchange for a good many years and tho amount of business transacted in industrial shares is said by brokers to have been three times as much as for August, 1932, and six times as much, as. in August, 1931. Business in gilt-edged stocks was also active at firm prices, with occasional slight relapses due to profit-tak-ing. The most satisfactory feature from an Australian point of view is the strength of the Commonwealth and State stocks, which show a general improvement as the result of the rise in wool. A better tone is also apparent in other Australian stocks, notably bank shares and those of pastoral companies, which are in demand owing to the improved outlook and, as there are very few available, prices . advanced. . Mining shares have also risen sharply as the result of the higher price of gold and business lias been active.

REFLECTION IN SHIPPING

BIG TONNAGE INCREASE LIKELY,

Received September 4, 9.10 a.m. LONDON, Sept. 3. The journal Motor Ship expects the world’s mercantile tonnage to be reduced in 1933 by an unprecedented quantity to 2,500,000 tons gross through losses and breaking up, and unhesitatingly predicts that once the world’s shipowners confirm the growing belief that a change for the better is manifesting itself inquiries for new tonnage will increase out of all proportion to any apparently logical demand, for they realise from past experience that the whole aspect of the trade may be almost revolutionised in twelve months.