Conditions in Britain

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6628, 15 August 1931, Page 10

Conditions in Britain

SIGNS OF IMPROVEMENT. NEW INDUSTRIES FLOURISH Signs of an improvement in industrial conditions in England were reported by passengers on the Rangitane, which arrived from Southampton on Thursday. “A great many people arc looking forward, if not to a boom, at least to an immediately economic improvement,” said Mr. H. J. Wilkins, chairman of directors of the Co-opera-tive Wholesale Society of Great Britain, who arrived on a business visit to to the Dominion. Commercial conditions, he said, were brighter than they had been for some years. Mr. P. Cropper, of Auckland, who returned after a business visit to England, the United States and Canada, said conditions were actually prosperous in the South of England, although steel and cotton and the old-established industries of the north were still in a very bad way. It would appear that the new industries, such as those associated with electricity and established in the country south from Birmingham, were flourishing. It was a case of new wants promoting new prosperity, “The opinion is being expressed in financial circles at Home that New Zealand will be first country to come out of the depression,” said Mr. F. J. Whittaker, of Auckland, who returned after an absence of two years. “Everywhere I went I w r as impressed with the feeling of confidence in tho Dominion's ability to overcome her difficulties. ”