HOKITIKA GUARDIAN & EVENING STAR FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20th, 1920. TAKING STOCK.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 February 1920, Page 2

HOKITIKA GUARDIAN & EVENING STAR FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20th, 1920. TAKING STOCK.

Sir Auckland Geddes, President of the Board of Trade, in the course of a lecture at the Guildhal/to members of the British Industrial League and Council, reviewed the whole outlook of British industry, which he described as in process of complete revolution. , There was nothing, he said, which had been giving the Government greater anxiety than the fuel question. They were in the extraordinary difficult position that the pushing forward of their . industry meant the pushing of the in. : dustry into a noose, and the more they ! pushed the tighter that noose would | draw, unless—and here they came to j the central point—(l) there was more ; coal produced and got away from the mines or (2) some other form of fuel could be got to take its place. Both these remedies were being applied. A great development in the use of oil was proceeding, but, at the s®j time, it was transporting a part of the basis of our whole pre-war industrial system. Special ships had to go out to get oil, the ships that went for raw material went out partly empty, and the goods coming back had to pay double freights while at the other end we had not the coal as formerly, to pay for the raw materials. The changes in the coal industry were moving in the direction of making the rest of the country much more"independent of coal than before but at a price which the whole country had to pay.' We had to pay higher prices for everything we imported, and that carried with it a complete and permanent change in the wage levels. Now that ought to carry with it another change in the direction of raising «the work value—he did not say the work cost —the work value in everything that was sold by this country in its export trade, and if that were to be done they had to get in industry a higher level of skill in every direction. We required as a. nation to take stock of our position, and to realise that the war had profoundly and permanently modified our industrial life. Of necessity, if the population were to stay in this country, we were going to be more highly industrialised than ever before. With that must c-ome a much greater adaptability in industry. All that meant technical instruction, education and training—really a completely new outlook in industry, raising its whole status. The great readjustments necessary could only be made if employers and employed clearly under, tood what was going on. Britain had, ui his opinion, after most careful study th<greatest opportunity in her history, but they must rely on the intelligent co-operation of everyone. The British Government could not take over industry and run it itself—our sort of Government was not built for it. All it could do was to provide opportunities for instruction and information, and be ready to help at any moment. But the) industries themselves, employers and employed, and those who found the markets—the instruments of getting the value out of the goods that wore produced, the merchants —had to be', the keen architects of the new structure of industry which must arise.