“SANE OPTIMISM”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 65, 8 June 1927, Page 9

“SANE OPTIMISM”

THE BUSINESS OUTLOOK “If Britain gets two or three years of industrial peace she will once again assume the leading position in the commercial world. In spite of recent unrest and of all the money which has been sent out of the country, the financial centre has never shifted from London.” Mr. A. G. Lunn, chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, made this statement in an addres on “Sane Optimism in Business,” given to the Advertising Club yesterday. It would be a fairly safe estimate to say that England must have lost 50 or 100 million pounds through the three coal strikes, the shipping, moulders’ and the general strike, he said. She was also 38 millions behind in the budgeting. That was not a rosy and optimistic picture, but the old spirit of the forefathers, the determination to come through was having its effect and the position was improving. Necessity was a sharpener of wits, and the fact that the country and the manufacturers had been hard up against it had improved the old industries. “We must get the people back in the old Scotch and English habit of thrift,” he continued. “The instalment system of business, is, to my mind, grossly uneconomical, especially when luxuries are obtained. The purchasing of agricultural machinery, sewing machines and other things, which are useful, on the instalment plan is not so bad.’*