MR BALDWIN’S PRIVATE MEANS

Hokitika Guardian, 5 March 1931, Page 8

MR BALDWIN’S PRIVATE MEANS

HEAVY LOSSES. LONDON. January 15. Mi- Stanley Baldwin, speaking to the Engineering and Alri<ul Employers Association in Birmingham. revealed the fact that the shares in his old business had fallen Irom L 3 to 1/S. “When I took office,” he -said, “most of what I had was in that ancient industry. Ihe shares 1 hold now mid which I had then could have been sold for C 3 each, to-day they are worth 20 'pence. There is no cataclysm on earth than can bring thorn hack to more than a fraction of their ancient value. “It may have been had business on my part—many modern business men would sa v it was, 1 ought to have realised at the top of the market— hut when you have an old name in business against which nothing has ever boon said in this world, when you know that the public has come into the business on the strength of that name, it is an impossibility to throw your shares on the market when you know that in all human probability the loss will fall on them and not on you. “No. T nailed my colours to the mast of that ship of British industry, and I do not regret it. “We have to regain our leadership in industry, and that leadership involves the regaining of our paramount position in the export trade. Protection will help production, and will he a stimulus. Protection will give you that safeguarding behind which you may conserve your resources, modernise your plant, and develop your industry, and it will give that psychological impetus that we all need so badly. But it is no panacea. “Given that -great assistance,, the euro is in your own hands, and it depends on yourselves. and yourselves alone, what you can make of it.”