THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, JULY 19, 1926. BRITISH INDUSTRY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19845, 19 July 1926, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, JULY 19, 1926. BRITISH INDUSTRY.

Thkre has been exceedingly little reference in our cable news to the effect which the coal mining strike has had upon industry as a whole in Great Britain. The effect must have been very serious because coal mining is the most important of all key industries, since there is no other great industry in the United Kingdom that does not depend upon a continuous supply of coal to enable it to carry on its operations, and it cannot be supposed that the importations of coal into Great Britain during the currency of the strike have been more than a more fraction of the quantity required by manufacturers. To the enormous losses that will bo suffered uy the coal industry—by the mineowners in loss of profits and loss of business and by the miners in loss of wages—will have to bo added, in the final analysis of the cost of the strike, the very heavy losses that have been thrown on to allied trades. The whole deplorable affair has dealt a tremendous blow to British industry at a time when its power of recovery from the staggering effects of the destruction of capital during the war was being remarkably demonstrated. We are indebted to a publication in the United States, the Christian Science Monitor, for the production in its i. sue of June 1 of a most striking review of the industrial outlook in Great Britain, the issue containing a large number of informative articles by authoritative writers on various aspects, general and particular, of the situation about the time of the beginning of the strike. It may be surprising to a good many people to know that last year, which was considered to be one of depression, the productivity in Great Britain was about the same as in the highest pre-wai year. The recovery in production had not, however, been sufficient to absorb the increased population, which was nearly 8 per cent, larger than before the war. This increase is approximately the measure of the abnormal unemployment which prevails irj Great Britain, for there are approximately the same number of persons actually at work in various occupations in 1926 as in 1913. Mr W. T. Layton, editor of the Economist, who is responsible for these statements, points out further that there has been a general reduction in the hours of labour of about 10 per cent, since the wai, that money wages have increased by about 75 per cent, (accompanied by a corresponding rise in the cost of living), and that the consumption of the country as a whole is unquestionably greater than before the war, the explanation in the last case being that the country has been saving less. It is also shown by him that it is in the export industries that unemploymen) is most prevalent and that the reduction in the volume of exports accounts for this. In spite of handicaps, however, Great Britain has been able to retain and even slowly to increase the percentage of the total overseas trade which is in her hands, and the same is true of the volume of the world’s trade carried in British ships. Up to the present the cause of her trouble has been, not that she is losing ground to other nations, but that the world’s international commerce has been subnormal. Wc turn from Mr Layton’s article to one written by Sir Max Muspratt, president of the Federation of British Industries, to note the cheerful conclusions that are expressed in it: Great Britain’s financial position is sound, and her credit throughout the world is unassailable, which it certainly would not bo were the facts as bad as they are sometimes painted. We are supporting a taxation of 25 per cent, on our national income, and, in addition, the the debt service to our Allies, against which we are receiving nothing, but which is included in our taxation and therefore in our manufacturers’ overhead charges, is equivalent to a direct subsidy to the industrialists of allied countries, many of whom are successfully competing against us. Yet, though we are bearing such an enormous burden of taxation, we have, by a great effort, restored our currency to parity, but this return to the gold standard has not been accomplished without serious handicap to the export trades in _ which the greatest proportion of the United Kingdom population i-s normally engaged. In spite of all these adverse factors we are, in fact, enjoying a larger share of the world trade than we were before the war. True, our total exports are smaller but it is world trade that has declined, not Great Britain’s share of it. A very notable achievement is represented by the measure of restoration i hat- has been effected in British in- <■ l.ry since the war. It has regretfully to bo acknowledged that the coal mining strike will form a very definite setback, to an incalculable extent, to the movement towards the rehabilitation of industry, but the losses that will be ascribable to the strike, grave though they must be, will not be comparable with those that had to be faced after the war, and it may be hoped that the British genius for leeway and the British power of recuperation will triumph in time over the unfortunate combination of circumstances that is now assailing the industry of the country.