BUSINESS IN BRITAIN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 15, 17 January 1914, Page 4

BUSINESS IN BRITAIN.

Mr E. Lloyd Jones, of Messrs David Jones and Company, returned to Sydney recently from England and the Continent, and in an interview with a Daily Telegraph reporter he spoke enthusiastically of the business side of life in the Old Country. He found that a hig change had come over the methods of those at the head of houses like that of his firm. They were much 'ess conservative, and without saying they were more American, they certainly wree more modern. Their shops could take a place alongside any of ihc American houses for up-to-date

ideas. There were plenty of signs of prosperity, but the money market was still more or less tight. “There is,” ho said, “one tiling Australians should impress upon the attention of: statesmen in England. That is the creation of an Imperial Parliament. One feels in travelling through the country that even the men who take! an interest in public affairs have but j little idea of what Australia means' to the Empire. The same could he said• about Africa and Canada. I. was astonished by the lack of knowledge of I Australia. Except those having in-j terests here, few seemed to realise | where it is.” Industrially, Mr Jones j thought England was just starting j upon a career similar to that Australia | had been passing through during tne past seven or eight years, in the matter of industrial troubles and strikes. The same thing was coming to other countries of Europe. The Labor movement was growing, and, although not yet a big political force, it was going to he. Men of the type of Larkin were not taken ranch notice of. The position in Lister was the big political question. He could say without liesi' tation that if the Act went through there was going to be civil war, for there was every indication that Lister would fight. There was a very powerful element in England strongly in favor of Lister. “There is one thing I specially wish to say,” Hr Jones continued. “1 saw no sign of England decaying. We have heard a great deal about her going down; I found her very much alive, and apparently well able to take care of herself.”