CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 9 August 1930, Page 7

CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND

MR M ACHIN’S IMPRESSIONS. GRADUAL RECOVERY OF TRADE. WELLINGTON, August 6. Mr W. Maohin, of Christchurch, returned from England by the Rangitiki to-day. During his six months’ ( stay in Great Britain he attended the Congress of British Chambers of Commerce held at London in the last week in May, but lie found time to motor 6000 miles and visit most parts of the country. From his observations he ip convinced that a higher standard of living is in, evidence now than was at the time of his last trip Home. Internal conditions, changes in industrial conditions, the dole system, and the unemployment problem interested him particularly while in Great Britain, and he had much to say of these subjects. He is convinced, too, that Britain’s future is a happy one, and strongly opposes those who say that the nation is on the down grade. Mr Machin made some striking statements in support of this.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE. So far as the dole was concerned, he has made a particular point of dieoussing it with business friends in England, and found that everybody agreed that the people who genuinely paid contributions to the un-. employment Insurance fund were as much entitled to the benefits as any other 'insurer, “But there is a good deal of feeling among employers and employees,” said Mr Machin, “on the subject of those who are drawing the benefits but have not paid the contributions. They call them ‘uncovenauted benefits.’ On the other hand a lot of people are of the opinion that the country had to do something for those who are really misfits since the war.” An example of this perhaps would be the 'best way of explaining what he meant, said Mr Machin. Hundreds of thousands of people had been sent during the war to make munitions' at such towns as Sheffield. The war lasted so long that they took root thehe. After the war the original/workers came W'V and the people'who rbally had little skill gradually'’got oufcv ’of work. “But they havp got! their houses there and they cannot get put” said Mr Machin. He had been told that there were 36,000 unemployed at Sheffield. These people cannot., be allowed to starve, he said, and relief must be given either by payments from the unemployed insurance fund or by support from the Public Assistance Committees of local bodies. Boards of Guardianship were abolished earlier in the year. There were thousands of older men thrown out of work by changes in manufacturing processes, INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITY. It seemed to him, said Mr Machin that a greater line of cleavage existed now between the new industries and the old ones,' Tho now ones had much better factories and more modern ideas than the othero. In production, quality and everything else the new British organisations were second to none in the world. He had seen in England factories employing 20,000 people where ten years ago there were green fields only. Nearly 6000 factories, he had been told, were built during the last five years. Foreign competition was affecting the older industries which were not now doing so well, and this was due partly to old buildings and partly to old methods being used. “Some of them,” remarked Mr Machin, “are only now waking up to such tliiugs industrial rationalisation, “I emphatically disagree,” said Mr Machin, “ with those people who consider that Britain is on the down grade. There are more people in employment in Britain to-day than ever there were. Export trade per head of population is the highest among the leading nations of the world. She lias a favourable trade balance-—125 millions a year for the last three years—and her investments abroad are several hundred millions more than they were when the war concluded. When she has reorganised some of her industries and brought them up to the level of some of her newer ones, she will regain much of the trade that she lost to other nations while she was otherwise engaged.”