BRITISH DISTRESSED AREAS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 59, 11 March 1937, Page 8

BRITISH DISTRESSED AREAS

REHABILITATION EFFORTS THE GOVERNMENT’S PLANS MINISTER HOPEFUL OF SUCCESS [ British Official Wi.eless- I RUGBY, March 9. In a speech in which he explained and defended fhe Government s proposals for the amendment and extension of the special measures o£ rehabilitation alieady applied to region-, where particularly severe unemployment obtains, the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Brown) announced m the House of Commons a number of hopeful developments along the lines which the Government teas hoping to encourage, namely, the establishment of new and lighter industries, offering a broader basis fcr employment. He informed the House that in South Wales a firm was arranging to set up a glass factory and another firm a biscuit factory, while a sew-ing-machine fac’ory at Merthyr, engineering works at Aberdare and a reinforced concrete factory at Fort Talbot were also planned. Negotiations had also been proceeding between the Government, the Nuffield trustees, and the Low Temperature Carbonisation, Limited, for the establishment of a coalite low temperature carbonisation plant on the southern outcrop of South Wales coalfield. The capital involved in these six new undertakings in South Wales would be about a million sterling, and they would Ultimately give employment to 3000 people. Mr. Brown also announced that the Government proposed to appoint a Royal Commission to make «n authoritative and comprehensive study of problems taised by the southward drift of industry, and of the question of the location of industry as a whole.