GENUINE CONFIDENCE IN BRITAIN

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 82, 31 December 1934, Page 6

GENUINE CONFIDENCE IN BRITAIN

Mr. Norwood’s Prediction BUILDING PROGRAMME FOR ELIMINATING SLUMS Dominion Special Service. Auckland, December 29. ‘•lndustrially there is genuine confidence everywhere, and I predict Britain will be the most up-to-date country in the world in the next 10 years,” said Mr. C. J. B. Norwood, a former Mayor of Wellington, and managing-director of Dominion ’Motors, who returne; by the Mariposa to-day. H e was cominenting on the increase in confidence and welfare since his last visit to Britain in 1931. Britain, he added, had shown in many ways a desire to free itself from old ideas and customs, and give a lead to the world. He spoke of the ,big building programme which was eliminating slums, and money which was being spent on bringing railways and aviation up-to-date. A sum of £20,000,000 had been made available for electrification and the general improvement of railways. Britain was committed to a seven-day air mail service between England and Australia. It was anticipated that service would be extended to New Zealand. •' ‘ . “There is little doubt,” sid Mr. Norwood, “that if the Air Ministry which is seized with the importance-of aviation from a national point of view, carries out the scheme it has in mind, in association with private enterprise, practically the .whole of the first-class air mail throughout Great Britain will be distribute)! by air. services, and at a cost amazingly low in comparison with present charges made for air mail services.” ■

The motor industry, he said, had become the fourth largest in Great Britain. All leading manufacturers had had a profitable year, aud the prospects for next season were even brighter. Taking into consideration that the British manufacturer had to pay more for steel than his rivals in U.S.A., he \vas e doing amazingly well, having regard to the price level of the finished article. New models would show some modification of the extreme to which the treatment of bodies for wind resistance had been carried. ‘

His impression of America, formed by an opportunity he had of conferring with leading industrialists, was that confidence had not been restored sufficiently to stir the nation to action. There were many anomalies in the scheme for dealing with unemployment. Taxation, which had been hurriedly levied for the relief of unemployment, was. inequitable, and funds were not distributed to the best advantage. The (National Recovery Act necessarily had many repercussions, and it had been so modified th,at it was now only a skeleton of the original. Many of the leading American people he had met had plenty of hope, lint little on which to base, their confidence. The Federal Government had financed the banks with, lie thought, some clement of risk, to enable them to make payments to their customers just before Christmas, and this was reflected in a sudden business boom. “The bright star on- the horizon in the States is that President Roosevelt is enlisting the support of the leading industrialists of the country irrespective of their political views, and with the great national resources of U.S.A. it is believed this will lead to.a solution of national difficulties,” Mr. Norwood concluded.