CRISIS IN BRITAIN

Shannon News, 19 January 1926, Page 4

CRISIS IN BRITAIN

"TROUGH OP DEPRESSION." AN ADVERSE TRADE BALANCE. THE PROBLEM OF COAL. "England is/now engaged in what is almost a death struggle, endeavouring to get herself out of the trough of depression into which she has sunk since the armistice," said Mr. Edmun u S. Paul, the managing director of Schweppes (Ltd.), in Australia, who returned to Sydney recently, after aai extended visit to Europe. "The seriousness of the position and the possible decline of England's greatness are not now matters of whispered fears. The facts are seriously discussed in newspaper articles by men of the calibre of Mr. J. L. Garvin. "The facts themselves are' quite simple," continued Mr. Paul. "Britain's greatness in the past has depended on her foreign trade. Owing to her afo. sorption in manufacturing, she pro. vides only one.flfth of her vital necessities in the shape of food. Agriculture has been sacrificed to industry. Before the war, home exports were some £160,000,000 less than foreign imports. They are now some £350,. 000,000 less, and the balance vis going steadily against Britain. She cannot now even build ships for her own use at an economical price. "Seven (years after the armistice Britain finds herself with a great army of unemployed, with a burden of taxa_ tion unparalleled in the world, and with a difference between exports and imports of £350,000,000, and during that time she has spent nearly £300,000,000 on keeping the idle fed and the discontented from mutiny. What the future holds, no one can tell. A pessimistic view would show: Diminution of food supplies, a much higher cost of living, and eventual starvation.

"Coal is, of course, the key to the position," said Mr. Paul. "A fifth of Britain's foreign coal trade has al. ready gone because her coal is too dear to compete with coal from other countries. The Baldwin Ministry haa apparently set its face against nation, alisation of the mines, but in answer to a threat of a general strike, the Prime Minister granted the mining Industry a subsidy of £10,000,000, .while a Royal Commission is inquiring into conditions that are said to be' well, known to everybody. "This is only a temporary peace, however, for when the period of the subsidy ends early next year, the crisis will come again probably more acutely than before. The cardinal facts that . puublicists are trying to mak e clear every day are that the cost of production, both of food and other com. modifies, is too high, because wages, when compared with th e low wages of other countries, are too high, and output is too small. "A visit to Britain is depressing just now. By contrast, conditions on the Continent are happy: In France, where taxation is about a third ot what it is in England, there ar e prac. iically no unemployed, and living foi the French is comparatively comfortable. In the Austrian Tyrol and in Switzerland the people who appeared to have the most money, to spend in ythe hotels wer e Germans. They were to be found in their thousands every, where on the Continent except in France."' Mr. Harry Boan, of Perth, who has ;iust returned from a. seven months' Europe, said in an interview that trade conditions in England were bad. The chief problem with which people were confronted, was that arising out of long -hours, worked and small wages paid on the Continent. These factors were rapidly killing the British export trade, and all-round business depression naturally result, ed, the export trade being the backbone of British industry.