MR. BALDWIN’S “REMEDY”

Taranaki Daily News, 1 August 1932, Page 2

MR. BALDWIN’S “REMEDY”

, THE ONLY SURE WAY. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. “The surest “way of getting prices back is to get the circulation of goods which will stimulate trade,” said Mr. Baldwin in the House of Commons. “Other methods may or may not be successful; I am not going to hazard any prophecy, but I will say this, that after all the success and prosperity of this country depends upon the fellow responsible doing his job. Those people cannot wait for conferences or for any artificial means of raising prices; and I rejoice at the many instances which have come to my knowledge of men in different parts of the country who are sitting down to face this problem, using their brains, consulting their own workpeople and , taking them into their confidence, and who are able to carry on in these times and to carry On without any cut in wages. I will give the House two instances.

My first case, in the export trade, is that of a man in the Midlands • who makes buckets. He could not wait until prices rose to the 1929 basis; he found that he could not sell his buckets because the people who used to buy the buckets were not able to afford the prices which they used to pay, but that they might buy something cheaper. He sat down with his own problem and they worked at the problem until they had solved it. They are to-day producing a considerably cheaper bucket, and he has got a very large order from a most competitive part of the world, in North Africa, which will enable him to put his place on full time at the old rate of wages for many months to come. The other case concerns a large' provincial store with, its own clothing factory. ■ They manufactured suits of clothes which were sold at 70s. a suit, and they found that in the impoverished state of the country they could sell very few. The overhead charges went up, so these enterprising men consulted with their own folk and with the cloth manufacturers. They used their brains, and they produced a suit, not perhaps quite so good, but quite good, at 505., with the result that the factories are working full time and are likely to do so for a long time to come; and they are paying exactly the same rates of wages as they paid previously. Now that is the spirit, and the only spirit, which is going to overcome difficulties.”