THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 1913. BRITAIN'S PROSPERITY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 6 March 1913, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 1913. BRITAIN'S PROSPERITY.

Those who have been wont to regard Great Britain as a declining nation will read with interest, if not entire satisfaction, the optimistic comments of the London Times on the condition of trade in the Motherland. More tluui in most years, business in 1912 was subjected to violent disturbances by outside causes —disturbances, indeed, so many and so violent that they might well have been expected to make the showing for the year a gloomy one. At home, says the Times, we had the protracted coal strike, the influence of which extended to every line of commerce and industry. Following it came the troubles at the London Docks, while labour disputes more or less serious have interfered with trade in various other field*; and we had a. wet and dismal summer. In the world at tango the unsettloment caused by the Chinese Revolution was followed hy the war between Turkey and Italy, and that again was succeeded by the hostilities in the Balkans, which continued to tho very end of the year. In addition, there was the Titanic Disaster; wlrfle the United States has ibecn racked by the most tempestuous of Presidential campaigns, and in America a "Presidential Year"' is traditionally bad for business. Nor have the political conditions in the United Kingdom been such as to invite either to a sense of security in business circles ior to huoyancy of .spirit in tho masses of the people. In the face of all these untoward influences it would not havo been surprising if the commerce ajj|St industry of the world had been unusually depressed; but instead of this being the case the story is ono of almost unprecedented prosperity, of activity and expansion in almost overy department of trade and manufacturing ; and in this prosperity and expansion no country has shared more largely than has the United Kingdom, With the immeni.se demand that there has been for money to handle the. expanding trade and to make the necessary increase in plants and facilities to meet the growing business, it has been impossible that money should he cheap. Conditions havo accentuated the tendency of investors, which have heen going on for some yeans, to expect higher rates of intorest, and it was inevitable that on the Stock Exchango business should he only moderately active. Consols, though they recovered some 2| points from the worst «nd hy the end of til© ft t one time touched

72-J-, or four points lower than the lowest mark of 1911, but when the tendency is more and more to grade the value of even high-class securities on a 4 per cent, basis, as a result of the increasing prosperity of the world and the augmenting productivity of capital, it is impossible to consider the fall in Consols as very unnatural. Turning to our leading manufacturing industries, we find everywhere the same tale of enormous activity and of a huge and profitable volume of business. In the woollen and worsted industries the effects of the labour troubles were felt more acutely thaji in most lines, not only in the delays caused by tho coal strikes, but because the dock strike compelled the postponement of tho July series of London wool sales. Unhappily, also, the outlook is clouded, by tho threat ol trouble in the industry itself. But in spite of all the adverse influences, business has been {rood in all the woolconsuming industries of this country, and the price of raw material has advanced so tii.it to-day it is at a higher point than for some years past. The total woollen and worsted exports ran close to the gigantic totals of 1911 and exceeded them in value. In iron and steel, which dispute with cotton the position of being the chief British industry, notwithstanding the delay caused by the coal strike the exports have exceeded those of 1911 by 028,000 tons. Tho general activity in all lines of industry has made the demand most varied, and it has been impossible to keep abreast of the orders from the ship-building yards, from the railways, for bridge-building, and. all forms of structural material.