FAIR CHANCE FOR TRADERS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 23, 23 December 1932, Page 4

FAIR CHANCE FOR TRADERS

All? CHAAIBERLAIN ON NEW CONDITIONS. NEED OF ORGANISATION. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was the chief guest in November at the jubilee dinner of the Birmingham and District Society of Chartered Accountants. Air Chamberlain, who proposed the toast of “The Society,” mentioned that he spent the first five months of his business career as a premium pupil in the office of the president, and that when he left to take up a business post abroad the amount of his premium was returned on account of his assiduity.

j Continuing, he said that to the ordinary taxpayer, groaning under his burden, and to all those whose incomes I had boon diminished, progress towards recovery must seem disappointingly slow, hut such as chartered accountants would appreciate the amount of preparation which must he necessary for the possible signs of recovery to become apparent. AA’e had balanced our Budget, and that was not behind the scenes. Everyone knew that our finances wore now on a sound and solid basis. The adverse balance of trade had been checked, and file conversion loan had meant j the saving of something in the order of | £30,0(H),(100 interest. He saw that it was sometimes assumed that those savings could immediately he translated I into a corresponding reduction of tnxaj tion, but it must lie remembered on another assumption : that the yield of the main sources of our revenue still continued to maintain the level at which it stood last year. The advantage which we had obtained from the conversion operation was not confined to the saving in the national expenditure; it led naturally to the general lowering of interest upon all borrowings, and that meant, ns it worked down to industry, that industry would he able to" obtain its capital more easily and even obtain it at cheaper rates.

| LEEWAY TO AIAKE UP. He thought tho time was coining I when the Government must say, “AYc j have done our part.” They had now so I adjusted conditions that our manu- ! facturers had what they had been askling for for many years—a fair chance I against honest and fair competition. ! They would say to industry, “Now it ! is time for you to play your part in I the recovery of our country, and it is 1 lor industry, both employers and em- : ployed alike, to see that what we have | done to make conditions fair and reasonable for you is not thrown away by any failure on your part to put your house in order and to take full * advantage of the opportunities that have been given you.” Since tiic AA’ar all our principal competitors in foreign countries had made enormous progress in the organisation and equipment of their industry. While our own manufacturers in their enterprise and ingenuity feared no comparison with those of any other country, he was hound to say that in this important field of organisation—tile organisation of production and the organisation of markets—they still had a great deal of leeway to make up. He was not unaware of their difficulties. He knew that the falling off of demand, the cutthroat competition which had taken place in the unprotected market, the crushing burdens of taxation, had all helped to cripple their resources and to destroy that confidence without which they could not expect to see capital adjustment and new extensions and concentrations undertaken.

He thought that the time had now come to make an advance. The time | had come when manufacturers should put their heads together and see that they had no handicap because they were not so Well organised as their competitors in other countries. He felt confident that the now conditions would prove so much more favourable than they had been during recent years, and that with those signs which were now becoming apparent, the world would be very shortly in a position to buy again. Me felt confident that our traders and manufacturers would see that they must not neglect the opportunities before them, and that they would see that no stone was left unturned to equip themselves to beat the best of the rest.