CATCHING LONDON

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 45, 16 May 1927, Page 7

CATCHING LONDON

BOOMING BRITISH CITIES London is growing so rapidly that many people think it is draining all the smaller towns in England of their people. But while it is true that some of the old market towns are diminishing in size, a number of mid-dle-sized towns are increasing at a rate proportionate to that of London itself. An interesting point is that nearly all these growing towns are north of London, and some are comparatively close. High Wycombe, in Bucks, was a country village less than a generation ago, but is now a great place with over 20,000 people, and an ever-growing fringe of new houses. It is the centre of a thriving furniture industry, and in spite of its rapidly-increasing population has less than 150 unemployed. A little farther north is Luton, where the council is distracted because houses cannot be built quickly enough to shelter the rapidly-increasing population. All Smiles at Coventry There are three towns in the Midlands at present enjoying booms. First, Coventry, probably the most prosperous town in the country. Two years ago Coventry had 6,000 unemployed, but to-day there are less than 2,500, a fair record for a place with a population of 130.000. Her factories are working at high pressure, day and night, and her workers are getting such good wages that shopkeepers are doing extraordinarily well. Since the last motor show, one Coventry firm alone has received an order for several thousand cars, and the motor-cycle business was never better. Leicester is another Midland city that is prospering. Leicester’s chief trades are hosiery and woollen goods, which, after doing poorly for some years, began to boom in 1925. The only fly in the ointment is the fact that Australia has increased her import duties on woollen goods, raising them to something like 125 per cent on cotton underwear and 100 per cent on woollen underwear. Seeing that Leicester buys most of her wool from Australia, the new taxes will end by hitting the Dominion more hardly than they now do Leicester. Town Without Unemployed Leek is, or rather was, an old-world market town in Staffordshire. Now it has become the centre of the artificial silk industry, and since every woman wears stockings, jumpers, and other garments made of this beautiful mater'al, the demand is enormous. Leek’s original silk industry was started by the Huguenot refugees nearly 300 years ago, but the change over to artificial silk has brought such prosperity that unemployment and doles are practically unknown. Farther north still, Irlam, near Manchester, with a population of 12,000, has hardly any poor. In one recent year only £216 was distributed in relief. Irlam’s nearest rival in this respect is, perhaps, Chapel-en-le-Frith, in Derbyshire, a town about half the size of Irlam, which manufactures cotton and paper. Last spring there was not one person in the town on the unemployment register, a remarkable record for a place with over 5,000 people. Population Doubled According to the returns of the last census, there are four English cities which added more than 20,000 to their population between 1911 and 1921. These were Birmingham, which increased by nearly 80,000, Liverpool by 50,000, Sheffield by 30,000, and Coventry by 21,000. In Wales, Cardiff had the biggest growth, a matter of 17,000 Of smaller places, Crayford, in Kent, holds the record, having increased its population in ten years from just over 6.000 to just under 12,000. The two southern towns that are growing most rapidly are Bournemouth and Torquay.