TRADE OUTLOOK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 June 1939, Page 5

TRADE OUTLOOK

ENCOURAGING POSITION IN BRITAIN PRODUCTION AT HIGH LEVEL. MR OLIVER STANLEY’S REVIEW. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. (Received This Day, 10.35 a.m.) RUGBY, June 9. 1 The trade outlook was debated in the House of Commons today when the President of the Board of Trade, Mr Oliver Stanley, gave an encouraging account of prospects. The last few months, he said, had shown a very marked recovery and the index of the industrial production for the first quarter of this year had now practicaly reached the level of the first quarter of 1938. While giving full weight to the effect of the rearmament programme on recovery, one should not exaggerate it. There were a good many signs that the recovery was not so greatly due to rearmament expenditure as some people believed. British industry was still engaged in supplying normal requirements and there was, as yet, no general dislocation of industry. Speaking of what would happen when it was possible to reduce armament expenditure, Mr Stanley said that if reduction came as the result of a sudden, dramatic stroke, then that very stroke would immensely increase confidence and make possible a revival in international and internal trade.