Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, TUESDAY, DEC. 18, 1934. BRITAIN’S RECOVERY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18583, 18 December 1934, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, TUESDAY, DEC. 18, 1934. BRITAIN’S RECOVERY

For New Zealand one of the most encouraging signs on the world horizon of business is the continued recovery of Great Britain from the great depression. A prosperous Britain means everything to New Zealand, for look where we will, we can find no other market so capable of sustaining and expanding the production of this Dominion and making our own people prosperous. The year now rapidly closing has been a good one for Britain. Whether one measures by economic activity, by security price movements, or by the state of mind of the population, Britain’s recovery from the low point of depression has been a remarkable one. Except in certain local areas of devastation in Wales and the North, where once prosperous industries have almost disappeared, leaving idleness and misery behind them —and these depressed areas are now to be suitably ministered unto —there is in Britain to-day none of that grave foreboding which weighed so heavily upon the spirits of the people three years ago. Compared with many other countries, Britain shows almost an air of prosperity. Her people 'eel that the worst is over and that a fair degree of stability has been attained. Confidence in the solvency of the national finances has been restored. This year’s Budget, says the Times, has seen all classes who contributed to stop the rot in 1931 beginning to reap their reward in the restoration of emergency cuts and the remission of emergency taxation. The fiscal system of (lie country has been revised without either the prejudice which makes a fetish of isolated free imports or the pedantry which attempts to found prosperity on economic isolation. Housing has made gigantic strides and the slum clearance campaign is progressing better oven than its authors anticipated. The reorganisation of agriculture lms proceeded apace. The legislative part

of the task of revising the whole system of unemployment insurance and relief is now complete. Unemployment figures have gone down by close on a million from the peak of the depression. Money is cheap and plentiful. Production generally, even in the lagging cotton and woollen trades, has increased. Striking evidence of the trade revival is provided by the motor industry, the production figures of which for the current year are already 50 per cent higher than in the “boom" year of .1928. So many people have been buying motor cars that one of the great national problems of the moment is that of cheeking the death rate on the highways caused by the suddenly swollen motor traffic. Mr. Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer, at. the recent Mansion House dinner to the bankers and merchants of the City of London, declared that the National Government, by the principles it had followed had taken the first steps towards the relief of national burdens. “We are entitled to claim," he said, “that we have delivered the goods." Mr. Chamberlain gave chapter and verse for his optimism—facts' and figures to support; his claim that the industries of production had shown a marked advance this year. He quoted the business indices of different trades. The textiles index was 91 as against 86; chemicals, 109 compared- with 101; engineering and shipbuilding 119 to 97; iron and steel, 104 to 78; nonferrous metals, 142 to 104. Railway revenues bad increased. Shipping under construction had doubled. There was 58 millions (sterling) of new building this year, as against 49 millions last year and 37 millions the year before. The index of retail trade showed an increase of 5 per cent. Sterling had maintained stability amid the chaos of world exchange. This is undoubtedly a. good showing. The huge influx of foreign funds, despite reduced interest rates, indicates that, outsiders look upon Britain as a tower -pf financial strength in a* world beset by uncertainties. Only the other day in a radio address .President Roosevelt cited the British monetary policy, the behavior of British banks in the emergency, and social security and collective bargaining, in all of which, he, admitted, Great Britain had advanced much further than the United States. The. recovery has been made under considered policies of the National Government —policies that have been singularly devoid of any of those spectacular adventures and sanguine experiments which have distinguished recovery movements in other countries. The actions of the Government; throughout have been characterised above all by caution, moderation, and a disposition to interfere as little as possible with private interests and initiative. One- of the principal measures contributing to recovery was the gigantic bond conversion of two years ago which reduced interest rates and inaugurated an era of cheap money, and another was the cardinal financial principles of the Government to keep the Budget balanced. And this is how the Foreign Secretary, Sir John Simon, is able to speak of the position: “The recovery of Britain, at a time when the whole world is struggling with new problems and is still searching for means of relief," he said in a speech at Nottingham, “has made an immense impression on foreign observers. It has given ns a status and authority which we must use, to the utmost of our abilities, for promoting the cause of peace and assisting world improvement. No one •an visit Geneva and experience the close personal contact which I have had the opportunity of making with foreign statesmen without realising how the history of Britain during the last three years has impressed the world by its demonstration of national steadiness and unity. Let us then preserve the new spirit of political cooperation which lias so much to do with producing these- results. The tasks before us call for all our united energies. Do not let us dissipate our inheritance by faction lights. Let us show that the world is justified in its confidence in Britain because Britons lavo confidence in one another."