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I too
by any means, all of them of our own making. often hear people mily Britons, because self- criticism is a national pastime of the British – saying that Britain and the British workers has gone or is going to the dogs. The implication is always that Britain is going down while virtually everybody else is going up. Most of the criticisms are, at best, only half true. There are many other countries worse off than us in most respects but they don't shout about it. Conversely few are better in respect of the benefits the Welfare service provides for sickness, old age etc and I see no weakness in that.
To avoid burdening you with a lot of figures (as I could) I invite you to take the word of many economic observers that all the signs now are that the British economy is on a fast revival. It is expanding faster
now than for a decade. Unemployment has come down by more than a quarter of a million in the past year; job vacancies are increasing; the number of people working overtime is increasing; productivity in manufacturing industry in terms of output per man rose by 9% last year which was a record and was faster than
in most other industrialised countries. Our industrial
production is increasing at an annual rate close to 6% and a recent EEC Commission forecast predicted a growth of 6% in 1973 ie one of the highest in Europe. Although there is still some way to go progress has been made in curbing the rate of inflation. For the
past six months it has been at a slower rate than in many other countries affected by the same adverse world prices which are contributing significantly to our increase. Recently published figures for wholesale and retail price rises in OECD show that UK compares favourably with most of the other members of OECD.
Helped partly by devaluation as well as by the steadying of the general costs in the UK our export prices are becoming and have already in many cases become much more competitive. This includes against
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/the Japanese