FAGE SIX THE WORKMAN SATURDAY OGTOBER 17, 1925.
British Finance and Commerce.
Calls For an Enquiry Into Industry BIR GEORE HUNTER DECLARES IT APPEARS TO BE ON THE ROAD TO RUIN.
with SEES SOMETHING WRONG. Up to date Jewelry Wals End on the Tyne The Fuller Jewelry Store Chesterfields not only please the taste. They do more they give to your smoking such a new and different enjoyment that there only one way to describe itdeclaring Chat Be Prepared for that Pain The Sattel Urges Royal Commission to In every form can be seen Save Britain From Menacing here at its best See our International Crisis. Wrist Watches, London, Sept. 12 We appear Bracelets, to be on the road to rain is one of the outspoken statements in Diamond Rings a letter addressed to Premier Brld win by Sir George Hun and a hundred other adornter, noted British shipping ments and you ll recognize authority, in which he urges the appointment of a royal com mis why this is the LEADING sion to save Britain from JEWELRY HOUSE in town manacing industrial crisis. Si: ask prices and you ll find still Gorge is bead of the great ship building firm of Swan, Hunter another reason Wigham. Ltd, Mauretania is among the famous ships buil by this firm. 122 Central Ave. Phone 629 Sir Georke deprecates a mere investigatio of the coal ir dastry what is needed is a drastic investigation of all branches of British industry. He writes. Our shipping trade is becom ing more and more depressed, You can stop excruand large proportion of our ships ciating pain instantly are laid up. Our iron and steel if you will only apply trades are largely idle and their SLOAN LINIMENT men unemployed. Most British shipbuilding yards are closed Sloan Lipiment is or being closed pain greatest enemy. It is evident something is and is backed by 40 years wrong with our industries. What of success the world over.
is wrong? capitalism. Is it trade unionism?
It is an invaluable remedy for Sur ly a royal commission to Rhem Sciatica ing aire into and report upon the Sore Throat Badache economic situation of our indusSprains Bruises, etc tries and the conditions aff. cling them is much more needed than Chest Pains Stilf Neck another inquiry into coal mining It penetrates right to made alone.
the seat of trouble. The need is urgen. We are warms and soothes the not on tbe road to improvement, nerves and tissues, banWe appear to be on the road to ishing pain.
Try it now.
This warning is causing con.
At all druggists and siderable stir here, specially as dealers.
it appears simultaneously with statistics showing ap enormous SLOAN and disquietiog excess of British LINIMENT imports over exports.
Chesterfield CIGARETTES of finest Turkish and American tobaccos blended LIGGETT MYERS TOBACCO CO.
ruin.
ATTENTION. PAIN ENEMY Writing late in September London Correspondent says:It is inevitable that, because trade is bad compared pre war standards, critics should attribute the decline to one cause or another, and because the de.
cline has been overempasised other crities should advance to their defence. Thus we find Mr.
Keynes, whose brilliance as an economist is undisputed suggesting that our trade position bas worsened during the last year and attributing this charge to the gold standard and Dr. Walter Leaf, of the Westminster Bank, more conscious of the soundness of the position, directly challenge ing Mr. Keynes view. It is, of course, unhappily true that no one can discuss this controversy without first reflecting that as Mr. Keynes is the pioneer of a managed currency as against the gold standard he is bound to attack the latter. And perhaps Dr. Leaf as a great banking figure is equally bound to defend it. The controversy, in the light of these reflections, would seem to be merely resome; and, ia point of fact, few ordinary people know or care much about tha gold standard.
Moreover the ingenuity or illogic with which the disputants conduct the controversy can be of little interest to most people who are concerned more with the prespects of trade and the chances of an amelioration of their own condition. But it is of great interest that in debating the question of the gold standari the disputants have been driven to assemble a series of facts ser which are not generally known.
The superficial impression which the labour disputes in England make upon the casual observer who is not conversact with the facts is that of a booy of people so ill paid as to be driven to revolt. Those who draw this inference inevitably tend to exagger ate the decline of British trade since they judge that it is in so bad a way that it cannot pay reasonable wages.
Now it is significant that Mr, Keynes analysis of our trade position shows that the decline is due to the bigh level of certain costs as compared with other countries. One of these costs is the factor of wages. The main raw materials ef international commerce, such as wheat, cotton and copper, cannot have different price levels in different countries for anything but the shortest space of time; and in so far as the cost of living of the working classes involves such materials it also will move with more or less rapidity in sympathy with the changes in their prices. It is in this way that an improvement in the exchange will tend to lower the cost of living; and it this were the only or even the main factor in the production of objects for sale abroad the export trade of England would be much better to day. There are, of ocurse, other factors. Wages are involved; and also railway freights, taxes and fixed interest, such as tbaton debentures. some English industries wages move in sympathy with the cot of living.
The railways have a scheme of this bonus was designed tr adjust sort and the Civil Service remuneration to change standard of values. In cases such these a fall in the cost of living will be followed by a fall in wages. But this adjustment will Involve another delay. In the case of the staple raw materials already referred to prices adjust themselves almost automatically. The cost of living will share in part of any decline but the effect will not be obvious for some little time. In cases where wages depend upon the cost of living, the effect of a fall in the price of the main raw materials will not make itselt felt for much longer time: and so it will come to pass that the cost of commodities produced for export will remain at a higher level than the price level of the raw materials.
But it is only a minority of industrles which adjust wages to the cost of living. In the others a decrease in wages must be brought about negotiations between the employers and the employed. And the other factors. railway freights etc, may not fall for a considerable time. All those considerations should apply everywhere. But their bearing upon the export trade of England can be appreciated wben it is realised that, according to Mr. Keynes figures, English wages are ten per cent Dentist Howell House Rent Receipt Books What everyone is saying KRONEN BRAU superior to all imported beers HOUSE 1078, LA BOCA CANAL ZONE.
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tions not later than Thursdays to M. WILKINSON insure publication. This is impera.
tive and must be adhered te. Contractor and Builder bigber, relative to the cost of living, than those of any other House No. 20 nation. Taking the level of 1913 28th NOV. STREET, as 100 the ons: of living last June was represented by 173 and SAN MIGUEL wages by 180, while the price Box 411, Panama, level of the main raw materials was represented by 157. Plans and Specifications Free These figures speak for them.
selves. In no other country in First Class Workmanship Europe is the wages level above Guaranteed that of the cost of living level e. whereas in England the working classes have improved their position, in other European Have you tried the at least countries they have, slightly, lost ground since the new Beer war The effect of this change upon England competitive posi Kronen Brau tion is obvious and one of Mr Keynes expedients for improving it is a general reduction in wages by per cent. Those who GREAT BRITAIN RIDare interested in Mr. Keynes DING HERSELF point of view will reflect that this suggestion is perfectly consistent with the position he has Of all Red Trouble Makers maintained for the last few years.
His first suggestion would have bad the same effect, Direct West Indian Cable since an expansion of credit despatch from London quote the would have involved a certain Daily mail as saying that the amount of inflation and the effect Government has initiated a camof this would have been to reduce paiga against propagandists in the wages factor. Those who Great Britain and has already opposed bim may bave thought decided to deport about 50 Rus.
that a reduction in the purchas sians and French Nationalists.
ing power of money would have The Home Office bas ordered led to labour troubles. But the Scotland Yard to prepare a list mere threat of a reduction of of aliens who have long beea wages in various directions has susperted of working here in the found organiz. Labour making interests of the Bolsheviks while a firm stand and it seems clear the police chiefs of the provincial that export prices must be cities have been instructed to reduced by other means.
make similar lists.
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