Trade and Employment

Since the War Great Britain, in an effort to rehabilitate her foreign trade, has made eight trade agreements with the following countries: Spain, Latvia, Lithuania, Rumania, Esthonia, Afghanistan, Russia, Czecho-Slovakia.

Premier Baldwin at the Conservative Club in Glasgow said that, though it was looking far into the future, "in Russia we have one of the largest potential markets in the world. I believe that in the long run it will be to Russia we shall have to look, with one or two other parts of the world, to provide that increased

scope for trade which must be found to absorb the exports of Germany, represented by her reparations, if you can get them, which absorption alone will enable reparations to be paid without bringing us face to face with some of the keenest competition which we shall ever have suffered."

A letter from the industrial group to Premier Baldwin outlines the serious condition of British trade and industry. The letter describes the present depression as " due to political uncertainty, lack of confidence, war wastage of wealth and loss of purchasing power among our customers."

Attention is drawn "to the alarming indications of industrial unrest everywhere apparent." Emphasis is laid on the unemployment problem and its disruptive effect on the trades unions, the " safeguards of industrial peace." It is estimated that if unemployment continues at its present rate the unions will be bankrupt within a year.

As a relief the group recommended among other things spending $203,000,000 on electrifying the railroads as a means of absorbing part of the 1,500,000 army of unemployed.