The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 22, 1925. BRITISH INDUSTRIAL SITUATION.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 September 1925, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 22, 1925 . BRITISH INDUSTRIAL SITUATION.

Tin: pn.iition of imln^tri:il conditions in CJtf.it Britain is very serious. All nldjiyr tin* line labor organisations appear tu In* making tin* position inoro ami moil* difficult by extreme de* iiiamls ami extravagant .statements. The late Labor Conferenci* was a ease in point of the trend of organised labour at Homo, indicating a condition of affairs ivliicli is an absolute menace. And this despite the advice and pleading of sane leaders of labor who realise the situation and talk frankly of realities. An American writer, referring to the subject says that at the moment pessimi-m is at high tide in Great Britain. The number of registered unemployed is greater than a year ago. the trade returns of recent months have been especially bad. and a grave crisis is impending in tbe coal industry. The industries of Great Britain have suffered from competition on the continent, where currency depreciation has accomplished a reduction of wages in such an insidious and stealthy manner that the wageworkers scarcely knew what was happening, or did not know how to prevent it. However, tbe fundamental reason for tbe poor trade in certain industries largely dependent upon export business is that consumption in those lines is low tlu* world over. The conditions are like those that have existed in the T’nited States as the result of unbalanced relations between agriculture and the highly organised industries. Tbe reduced amount of business lend- to go to the imintries where industrial osg are relatively low. Tt is estimated that tbe aggregate of steel exports is 10 per cent, less than would To normal but for the interruption of industry by tile war. The labour organisations of Great Britain i" fuse to recognise or meet this situation, and Belgium and Germany have I'eoi taking the work, even in tic* British home market. It is said that if the British workmen should ne<opt lower wages, their competitors on •be continent would cut under them further, and that the policy would simple mean tbe degradation of labor everywhere, but there is reason to believe that this is n mistaken opinion. A general reduction in the cost of coal and steel probably would give tbe very stimulus which is needed to bring consumption back to the normal rate. The first- effc t of an increase of 40 or AO per rent, in the demand for steel would be to put the steel-makers at work and give them more wages than they have bad in many a day. while the industries using tbe steel would give work to as many more, and the increased purchasing power thus set in motion would be felt all the way around tbe industrial circle. Aforeover. once the industrial machine was

in balance again, wages everywhere would resumo thrir natural pendency

upward. The desperate struggle over a United amount of business would lie over, and a competitive struggle among the industries for labor would take its place. The textile industries of Great Britain, like the coal and iron industires, have world-wide markets, and there can he no doubt that tile prices 01 goods, also, are too high for former customers to take them in the same quantities as before the war. The law of exchange is an unyielding one; no people can spend any more than the value of their own products; you may trade with them on that basis and no other. The refusal to recognise this condition is the secret of unemployment in England—and such unemployment tis ue have in America.