Encouraging Trend Revealed in Analysis of British Industrial Production

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26630, 28 November 1947, Page 5

Encouraging Trend Revealed in Analysis of British Industrial Production

N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent

Rec. 9 p.m

LONDON, Nov. 27

Three sets of figures issued this week show distinctly encouraging trends in Britain’s post-war recovery. The spurt in coal production, which has followed the recent agreement to extend working hours, has brought production to well over 4,000,000 tons weekly during the past three weeks and has put the miners within reach of the 200,000,000 ton target set for them by the Government White Paper.

The target for the steel industry is predicted to be exceeded by 2,250,000 tons, of which 1,750,000 tons should be made available for export. The third set of figures, dealing with disputes, reveals that although 6.500,000 working days have been lost through industrial disputes since the end of the war in Europe, this is 83,000,000 days less than were lost by strikes in Britain during the same period after the First World War.

Although it is expected that the approaching Christmas holidays will cause a drop in coal production, miners can reach their target if they average 3.920,000 tons during the next six weeks. 'lf they exceed that figure, as they may do, they can come close to the 2,200,000 tons target which the T.U.C. and Employers’ Federation agreed upon as a more realistic appraisal of the needs of British industry. Reserve stocks are now 6,000,000 tons higher than they were at this time last year, and last week the recruiting figures, which had been slipping during the previous four months, took a decided turn for the better.

Predictions that the British iron and steel industry would reach its 12,500,000-ton target for the year have now been supported by the Economic Director of the Iron and- Steel Federation, Mr R. M. Shone,' who told a meeting of the Institute of Bankers this week that the target would probably be -exceeded with 1,750,000 tons available for export. On this basis, home supplies of steel would be 40 per cent, above pre-war levels. These figures were given yesterday in the House of Commons by Mr George Isaacs, Minister of Labour, who told Mr Vernon Bartlett (Independent,

Bridgewater), that he fully agreed that the figures should be published abroad as widely as possible in order to counter defeatist propaganda. Another encouraging development is the spirit of co-operation in which railway workers are responding to Sir Stafford Cripps’s appeal to expedite the turn-round of railway rolling stock. On Monday, Sir Stafford officially thanked railway volunteers who on Sunday unloaded and released 6200 wagons. If this co-operation continues throughout the winter as the railway workers have promised it will do, it may enable industry to overcome its greatest immediate problem—how is it to move 4,000,000 tons more goods this winter than it did last year with 200,000 railway wagons unusable owing to repairs? ' Other figures worth noting are that the nroduction of commercial motor vehicles is now proceeding at double the rate pre-war, that more agricultural machinery was produced in the second quarter of this year than in the whole of 1938, and that cutlery, radio, aircraft and rubber _ manufacturers are well above their general average.