IN DEADLY PERIL

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXVI, Issue 7908, 28 September 1929, Page 3

IN DEADLY PERIL

INDUSTRIES OF 6REAT BRITAIN LOSS OF FOREIGN TRADE WARNING TO THE NATION LONDON, August 16. England is jazzing, motoring, racing, week-ending, and spending capital while her great indTistries are slowly perishing. Our once proud position as the world’s greatest producer is gone. We are in danger of losing the race in which failure spells not only chagrin and humiliation, but national disaster, stated the Right Hon. Lord Morris, P.C., in an interview.

Before the war, Germany and the United States were already ousting us from the markets of the world. That process has been accelerated in the post-war period to danger point. If we are to recover, and I believe recovery is possible—we must get back to fundamentals. The two stark facts which face the observer of industrial England to-day are idle men and empty factories. Great Britain can no longer claim to be the workshop of the world; Cobden’s prophecy that She would always be so has not been fulfilled. We are ringed about by competitors who are snatching from us the world markets which our forefathers, the great pioneer overseas settlers, founded for us. And without that great foreign trade we cannot hope to maintain our world-trade position.

MENACING DEBACLE No country was ever great without great foreign trade. Spain, Venice, and the Netherlands, once great foreign traders, declined with the decrease of their foreign commerce. Facts and figures are eloquent of the decline of post-war industrial Great Britain. To-day we are producing 30 per cent, less than in 1913. Before the war we had to export onethird of our products to pay our way. We now export half that amount. Before the war Germany had to export one-half of her products: the United States one-tenth, on account of large protected home markets. To-day our total earnings are £3,000,000,000. From that ive pay. after deducting costs of labour, raw materials, -and interest on capital, £850,000,000 in public taxes,£l,ooo,000,000 in municipal taxes, and, having done so, we must compete against tariffs, mass production, and the progressive decline of foreign investments.

In 1920 we had £252,000,000 invested abroad. In 1924 no more than £29,000,000. Those figures indicate the decline in our trade balance. Our ten working millions are to-day working eighty days per annum for the Government. And they are receiving £6OO less than in 1913. Such conditions speak eloquently of the speed with which we are moving towards the debacle which menaces us. PRODUCTION COSTS HEAVY It is well to focus the main causes of our inability to sell in foreign markets to-day. The root cause, as I see it, is excessive cost of production. It is costing too much to produce our raw materials —such basic materials as coal. And It is costing too much to run our great industries, such as the shipbuilding industry as one example. And the same is true of agriculture. Even our Dominions can produce, transport, and still undersell the home farmer. And while our production declines, our open door admits an unending stream of foreign, cheaply-produced goods. Those goods we buy with money which we have not got to

spend. But the greatest burden, and iho prime facor in the paralysis of our great industries must be laid at the door of the policy which has broken the backs of those industries with the burden of excessive taxation. Before the war Government taxation stood at £850,000,000, local taxation at £150,000,000. We now have a burden of an added £800,000,009. It is more than we can stand. It is the root cause of the high cost of production, and all the evil consequences flowing from it. And it is at this crucial time in our industrial history that the country is living more luxuriously than ever before. I estimate that £1,000,000,000 is spent annually on non-essentials. PERILOUS PLIGHT

If we continue on the down grade at our present rate of progress, the ultimate disaster can be calculated with something like mathematical certitude. Is that ultimate disaster —the collapse of Great Britain as a world-Power in trade and commerce —inevitable? Pessimists say: Yes. Ido not agree. But we must wake up to the truth of our perilous plight —that is imperative. In the first place we must make everyone understand what cheap production means. And the workers must be convinced they are getting out of industry all that it can bear. The workers are sometimes charged with unreasonableness. But I think the mass of workers will be quick to appreciate the fact that if the country goes down they go down with it. And it is just as necessary for capital to be reasonable. It has hot always been so. In the past the workers have hot always had the worth of their hire. Further, we must learn Ito buy and consume what we produce. We could add substantially to our surplus of home-manufactured goods if we were to cut out our many foreign items. To-day recovery is possible, tomorrow it will be too late. It is inconceivable to me that Great Britain will go down to her doom in a spiut of levity.. Warning voices are beingraised on all sides and by all pari its. Will they be ignored? If they are, then the future holds for us the. story of the decline of Great Britain as a world-industrial Power.