The Dominion WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 1921. A TURNING POINT IN DEPRESSION

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 169, 13 April 1921, Page 6

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 1921. A TURNING POINT IN DEPRESSION

Although the industrial position in Great Britain is still critical, it appears that there are now to prospects of settling the coal strike on terras which will cnablo the minting industry to overcome its present difficulties. There are good grounds for the expectation mentioned in one' of to-day’s cablegrams that a resumption of work in the collieries aj; lower wages will lead to a reduction in the cost of living, and that a settlement in these conditions may constitute the turning point as regards trade depression. Very much more, of course, turns on the present negotiations than the. restoration of peace in the coal industry. It is a truism that coal is the basis of British productive enterprise. Ample supplies ,of cheap coal took a place of primary importance amongst the factors which enabled Britain before the war to compete successfully with her strongest rivals ,as an exporter of manufactured goods, to take a premier place as a shipping nation, and to offer a good and assured market for raw materials and foodstuffs. No one desires or expects miners wages a-nd coal prices m Britain to return to pre-war levels, but it is essential to British industrial recovery that as regards working costs the mining industry should return to something like the same position relatively to other industries as it occupied before the, war. The increase of working costs in the mines of the United Kingdom has much more than kept pace with the general rise in costs of production, and abnormal coal prices have heavily intensified the present depression of British industries and incidentally of the British market for oversea produce. It is, of course, obvious that the reasonable readjustment in the coal industry which would do so much to assist an all-round recovery of British industries would, correspondingly brighten the trading outlook in this country and others similarly circumstanced. Evidence is available on all sides’ of the extent to which British trade and industry have been checked by excessive coal prices. The export of coal from the. United Kingdom has fallen to small proportions for the time being, and this is not due to the absence of demand in European and other countries, but to the fact that British exporters have been heavily undersold by their American competitors. The extreme restriction ,of coal exports seriously prejudiced the shipping industry, already handicapped by the high price.' of bunker coal. As Sir Joseph Maclay observed recently, increased coal shipments (which he anticipated as a result of a decline in coal prices) represented the employment of millions of tons of shipping. The effect of high coal prices in general productive enterprise in the United Kingdom is conspicuously illustrated in the case, of iron and steel production, industries in which working costs are very materially affected by the price of coal. Touching on the present condition of these industries, the chairman of Lloyd’s Bank (Sir Richard Vassar Smith) observed recently that from the latter part of last year onwards, America, Belgium, and France sent largo quantities of iron and steel into Great Britain at prices L'p.low home quotations. As a result British prices had come down, but they must be reduced still further if foreign competition was to be met successfully. A report dated at the end of last February stated that Belgian steel bars were being imported into Wales at about twothirds of the cost of Welsh bars. At the same period Continental pigiron was being delivered at works in the West of Scotland at £6 per ton, while the price of the local product was £ll 10s. per ton. Somewhat similar instances might be multiplied. It is quite clear that apart from the disabilities incidental to the restriction of external markets, British industries are handicapped by high costs of production which must be lowered if they are to make head againht competition. The all-round improvement which may be anticipated from a substanl- - reduction in the price of coal is measured by the extent to which this price enters directly and indirectly into industrial working costs and the cost of transport by land and sea.

Happily, although the present condition of the coal industry is in some respects deplorable and has not been improved by the flooding of forty pits, available figures indicate that there is plenty of room for ,an adjustment of wages and prices which will tell with farreaching benefit- on industries generally without imposing any hardship on the working miners. The fact that the operation of the coal industry in January resulted in an aggregate loss of £2.100,000. and that this rate of loss has since been exceeded, shows the position at i_t« worst, but as regards the possibility of improvement it has less depressing Some reduction of wages is inevitable, but there are also other means by which the production of coal mav be. cheapened if miners and their employers reach working harmony. For instance, there is much room for improvement in output. The table which follows shows respectively the number of men emrdoecd and the output of coal from British mines in 1913 an d i n 1920 : —

Number Oivtput employed. in tons. 1913 1,127.890 .‘6H.611.353 1920 1.186,944! 238.000.000 Last year, as compared with 1913, there was a decrease in output of over (13,000,(MX) tons, although over 59.1M10 more men were employed. A reduction of hours from eight to Winn par day has something to do

with the fall in production, but it is noteworthy in this connection that some British collieries working short time have recently reported tiiat their output for three days’ work is nearly as large as for a full week. This is duo to pieceworkers endeavouring to maintain their level of wages in the shorter time. The fact that the average wages cost of a ton of coal was five times as high at the end of February as it was before the war in itself suggests that there is scope for a settlement which, without injuring the miners, will valuably stimulate the recovery of other industries and do much to promote a general revival of trade,.