COOL OPTIMISM

Taranaki Daily News, 13 June 1932, Page 7

COOL OPTIMISM

MR. CHAMBERLAIN’S HOPE

WORLD PROBLEMS REVIEWED

IMPROVEMENTS IN BRITAIN

ENCOURAGING COMPARISON

EUROPE NEARER UNANIMITY

British Wireless. Rugby, Juns 10. The future could be contemplated with cool heads and with cautious but reasoned optimism, stated the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Neville Chamberlain), in a speech on British and world problems during the third reading debate on the Finance Bill in the House of Commons to-night. Mr. Chamberlain urged international cooperation. He quoted figures to show that Britain’s trade position was comparatively gqod.

The difficulties at present being encountered, he said, were common to every country, and would not be solved in any Finance Bill introduced in Britain alone. Co-operation between nations was the only way in which a solution of the prevailing problems could be found.

Referring to debt charges and the prospects of undertaking the conversion operation, Mr. Chamberlain said that when the Government considered the circumstances favourable it would act promptly. Dealing with the general outlook, he said that some feeling of uneasiness, which did not seem to be well-founded, had arisen. He deprecated both breezy optimism and undue pessimism and hoped that the House of Commons would keep a balanced judgment.

“LITTLE SHORTAGE IN REVENUE.”

It was futile to bass any estimate from income tax revenue and surtax on the figures for April and May, or base any calculation for the whole year upon what happened in the first two months, but Mr. Chamberlain saw no reason to expect that there would be any appreciable shortage in the yield from inland revenue, including stamp and death duties, as well as income tax and surtax. They had no experience to make any reliable calculations of the yield of the import duties. Any estimate must, to a large extent, be conjectural. The latest figures for unemployment, said Mr. Chamberlain, were to some extent, disappointing, but they were affected by the Whitsuntide holiday and the next figures might show a very different aspect of the situation.

Comparing the existing situation with that prevailing before the first National Government took office, Mr. Chamberlain said that they had reached a stage at which confidence had been restored in the eyes o£ the British people and the world. That had come about to an almost embarrassing extent. The figures for unemployment, which had been rising in 1929 and 1930, had been checked. The Stock . Exchange price of 3J per cent, conversion loan, which last August was £77 12s 6d, was to-day £BB. TRADE FIGURES ENCOURAGING. “■ If Britain’s position was compared with that of other countries there was a good deal of ground for encouragement. The trend of trade during the January-April period, as compared with the corresponding period of 1931, showed that the percentage fall in imports in the United Kingdom was 12 per cent., but the United States suffered a fall of 30 per cent., France 35 per cent, and Germany 36 per cent. French exports had fallen by 38 per cent., and those of the United States and Germany by 36 per cent, each, while the exports from the United Kingdom had fallen by only about 7 per cent, in volume.

The percentage fall in imports to the United Kingdom in the past three months of the current year was nil, whereas in the United States it was 4 per cent, and in Germany 12 per cent. In volume of exports Germany had suffered a decline of 21 per cent., United States 16 per cent., and Britain less than 1 per cent. Had it not been for coal, said Mr. Chamberlain, Britain would have shown an increase in exports.

The export of manufactured goods in the first quarter was higher than in the first quarter of last year, but it was true that while Britain was receiving the largest share of it, world trade, as a whole, was continually diminishing, illustrating the fact that no single country could prosper when the rest of the world was depressed. But the fact that the world depression had been widening and deepening had brought home to every people an added sense of the realities of the situation. HOPEFUL FOR LAUSANNE. “In my view there is to-day in Europe a greater approach to unanimity as to the cause of the trouble and the steps necessary to solve the problems than at any time since the war,” said Mr. Chamberlain. “Next week we enter upon a conference at which an earnest endeavour will be made to reach an agreement with countries directly concerned in the solution of these difficulties, and I feel hopeful about the result. Lausanne may prove to be the turning, point in the history of Europe in these difficult days.’’ Mr. Chamberlain said he did not accept the view that if these hopes were disappointed further taxation was inevitable or that the end of the possibilities of reduction in national -expenditure had been reached. The main items of expenditure were of a size that would warrant the-be-lief that substantial reductions could . be made. They involved matters of vital importance, either to the safety of the country or of the standards of living, but if the Government felt that the changes regarding them were necessary it would not flinch from telling the House and the country. CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM JUSTIFIED. On the whole Britain had no cause for pessimism—quite the contrary. Mr. Chamberlain believed that it was necessary carefully to watch the situation and lose no opportunity of reducing national expenditure where that could properly be done. The Government had already taken measures which had prepared the way for a rapid return of prosperity as soon as general conditions became favourable. The Government had taken measures through the monetary policy to set the stage for that rise in wholesale prices which all desired, it had held the pound reasonably steady at a level not inconvenient to industry, and had enacted in the Finance^Bill

measures designed to avoid speculative fluctuations in the future value of sterling. The Government had instituted a system of tariffs on a scientific basis, had entered upon an era of cheap and plentiful money, and had seen ideas on the monetary policy in the United States running parallel with the British, and might therefore, especially in view of the conference at Lausanne and Ottawa and possibly later in London, think that the series of opportunities would enable the Ministers to contemplate the future with cool heads and with cautious but reasoned optimisp-