British Survey of Poland Finds Economic Gains

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 37, 6 November 1937, Page 18

British Survey of Poland Finds Economic Gains

LONDON — Poland is making encouraging economic progress, according to, an expert coxnmittee of prof essors and other members . of the TJniversity of Birmingham who have been engaged upon. a detailed study of'this question. Observers here .see a relation between Poland 's semi-dictatorial regime and itsi rise in national incorne, increased farm exports and^greater industrial output, emplqyment usually gaining under dictatorial measuxes, but . inva'sions of privatee initiativo couutin'g heavily oia the other side. . «■ The findings. on Poland. are contained in ,a?highly infqrmative mon'ograph issued here as one'of the •Birminghatn Inforniatipn Service series of reports on Slavonic countries. Poland is essentially a nation, of farmers. Not only does agriculture support 6L1' per cent'of its population comparjed with- only about 10 per cent in'Britain, but whereas in- Poland there are five farmers to one landless farm worker, in'England an'd Wales there are twice as many' farm "workers as there are farmers. Near. to NorpiaL .Cqnditions. Poland, nevertheless, separating as. it does Germany on the east from Kussia.on the.west, and. the. states of the Baltic on the north from those of the Balkans on the southj oceupies so commanding a g'e.ographic.al position that the economic development of its 34,000,000 persons is beginning to be xecognized as of major significance in Europe. 1 . Between 1929 arid 1933 the real in-, come of Poland fell by 25 per cfent, and the drop in its money value was even greater, being put at 40 per cent. The countiy, nevertheless, is now" • getting back to comparatively normal r conditions. National income in the first quaTter of 1937- was 20 -per - cent. higher than in 1933. Industrial output is represented by the figure 85.7 in 1937 compared with 58.2 in 1932. Exports have gone up by 20 per cent, investments by 93 per cent, and cohsumptioA by 41 • per cent. At the same time, unemployment has fallen and the numbers at work in mines, foundries and manufacturing industries have gone up from 483,000 in 1932 to 628,500 in March, 3937. Decline in Cost of Living Prices are still far bqlow norma! Taking 100 as the level in 1928, those of mineral building materials are still only 50, wholesale industry 60, and agrieultural produce 66. As the cost of living has also gone down, liowever, and now stands at 64 per cent of that in 1928, tho report is able to claim that at least sinco 1932 the share of the national- income going tQ the workers

has increased. The report adds that the smhllness of the improvement in export relative to Ihe increasc in domcstic invostrnent and consumplion indicates that tho factors responsiblo for rccovcry in PoJand havo been internal rather than external to Polish economyj