TRADE CONDITIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 February 1922, Page 8

TRADE CONDITIONS.

AMERICA AND THE OLD COUNTRY. Mr. Walter Hill, a Christchurch woolbroker, who. has returned after an absence of nine months in the Old Country, the United States, and other places, in an interview last week, said that when he left England things were chaotic. He saw thousands of people waiting for their doles at the labor bureaux. Most of the men were working not more than three days a week, and were obtaining maintenance from the Government. They were parading the streets of many towns and cities, with banners bearing the words, “Full work or full maintenance.” There waa no doubt that the financial stringency in Great Britain was interfering with employment. There must 'be a shortage of work during the present winter. Many firms in the textile trades had lost large sums, and the work of building up stocks must be delay If the same conditions had prevailed ten years ago, there would have been thousands of bankruptcies in 'England. They had been avoided now only by compromises, by paying only parts of liabilities and allowing the balances to stand over for terms ranging from three years to five years, and by the creditors’ action in writing-off, sometimes tb the extent of 50 per cent. He had cotae into close touch with the textile ttades, And spoke of them, but he 'believed that the same state of affairs prevailed in other trades in England. Asked if things were as bad in the United States, Mr. Hill said: “Things are worse there than in England. The fact is that the Americans don’t know where they are. They all seem to be clutching at the proverbial straw. They go about asking for the opinion of anybody and everybody. They’ve got British gold, but they seem to be afraid that it will slip from them, and that they’ll never get it back again—they’re so surprised that they’ve got ft.”