TRADE IN ENGLAND.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4733, 4 August 1924, Page 1

TRADE IN ENGLAND.

CONDITIONS IMPROVING. RECOVERY OF LOST MARKETS. Trade conditions in England, said Mr J. H. Goddard, of the Leicester flrm of woodworking machinery engineers. to a “Dominion” reporter laist week, were fast improving. England had very good opportunities in Australia and New, Zealand to recover A good deal of the trade which had been lost to America during the war and the years after it. An attempt was being made in this direction through lowering the cost of production, not by lowering wages, but by improving the conditions of manufacturing and the maintenance of a bet-ter-supply of goods. There .was a faigreatei tendency to-day, also,-for English manufacturers to send .representatives out to the Dominions and dependencies to make a study for themselves of the conditions of overseas markets. England was already receiving the benefit from such a policy. The British Government, he s»i& was intent on. lowering the costs-of production, and the people of England did not look on the preference proposals from any other point of„ view than that they would, add to the already excessive high cost of living. English people appreciated to the full the splendid support given by the Dominions. to the Mother Country throughout the war, but they did not feel themselves justified in conceding preference- and paying higher prices for the commodities because of it.

The- great barrier to England getting Lack to normal conditions, Mr Goddard explained, was the’ adverse exchange between England and America, and between America and European countries. This caused foodstuffs and raw materials imported into England from America to be procurable .only at a high cost, and prevented English manufacturers from selling their goods in Europe ap readily as did the Americans. Other serious difficulties were the inflated state of the currency in European, countries, the lack of real efforts to refund or reduce their debts; the fact that thjeir taxation and their debt was not anywhere as high.as in England; and that rhe interest alone on England’s debt io the United States, which she was trying • so-hard to reduce, Was enormous.

The English people, in his opinion, had no sympathy with- France’s occupation of the Ruhr. Trade must be repiprc teal,- and : they believed that France,-pursuing a policy of revenge, was preventing Germany from taking place as a trading nation. When the German currency became so in-flated-that it assumed the proportions of- a balloon, certain manufactures frbih that country were dumped into England. That practice had now nearly; ended, since attempts had been made to deflate the currency to get it .back to normal. It was undoubted that Germany was passing through a very troublous time ; that there was unemployment within her borders, and that bankruptcies were common. That-Would- continue, tsaid Mr Goddard, until such time as the deflation of the currency was complete, and that would not be for some time yet. All the European countries would have to go through the process. England' bad almost gone through it. In manufactures, said Mr Goddard, England still pursued the intensive methc ds adopted during the war, but in agriculture she was doing less than in war time. England workmanship was fully up. to -pre-war standard, and the output arid 1 quality were equally ais high as before the war.

The dole system in England was being continued among the unemployed, of wnom there were still about 1,000,000 . It was a distinct disadvantage, both rationally and individually, undermining as it did the moral fibre of the man who got it for doing nothing. Yet, while unemployment lasted, it was difficult to And a way of getting rid of.it. There was the danger-, that skilled men, through unemployment, were losing some of their skill. Insufficient apprentices were now being trained, and. when trade really did improve there might be a shortage of skilled labour. This, however, would probably be overcome by improvement in methods of manufacture in. such- a way that less skill would be required on the part of the operators.