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This hardly looks like an economy in chronic decline.
Of course a great deal depends on what now happens to world prices : but there are encouraging signs that
their rise has been checked. Perhaps even more depends
on our ability to contain our internal costs : and in
the last resort it is the British people themselves who will decide whether we do or don't succeed in doing so. Nobody owes Britain a living. But I personally hold very strongly that in such a situation any British Government of any political party is entitled to look for public support in
Britain for a resolute effort to check inflation : and that
Britain in turn is entitled to look for the goodwill and the
support of all its traditional trading partners for a policy whose success is surely almost as important for them as it
is for herself. And here may I add, with great respect, and fully understanding how important the sterling balances issue is for Hong Kong, that after all that has happened since the war, Britain is entitled to ask that Hong Kong should not add to her balance of payments problem in the
critical months ahead.
The prize is great.
the war
Something we have never achieved since
sustained expansion with stability of prices : and it is within our grasp. Moreover anyone who thinks that
Britain is inescapably gripped by some chronic decline should
remember that now just round the corner there is an entirely new element which may have dramatic consequences for our economy. In a world energy crisis Britain will very
soon produce at least half of her greatly increased requirements
of oil from sources already known and there may well be a
lot more to come : to say nothing of our huge reserves of
good and workable coal. This is an immense advantage of which
we ourselves as yet seem hardly conscious.
./..
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