W
THE CHINA MAIL, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 1958.
FORGET THOSE 'THREE WISE MEN'
AND TAKE THE
RIGHT ADVICE,
Mr. AMORY
HILE the wax bubbles at Mudame Tussauds, while the slim effigy of Mr Peter Thorneycroft is melted down and the round, amiable feature of Mr Heathcoat Amory are moulded to take its place, one question faces the country which Mr Amory helps to govern.
What is the change in the Chancellorship going to mean at the most important time of the year Budget time?
Arc Wo going to see a new, buoyan spirit in the land? Or are new burdens go- ing to be thrust on the people?
Can it be that ali that has happened 1 merely a change in the label on the Treasury door?
Frankly I must
MISE
Let's have
a cheer-up
confess that the auguries are not
favourable.
I
B
The evidence
BELIEVE the people are
slowly being conditioned for
tough Budget. I cile. two
pieces of evidence.
FIRST, consider the hints that were
dropped in plenty after Mr Amory met industrial leaders and TU.C. chiefs last month.
The
the
Budget
by William Townshend
means,
In
Cummings
AND the consequences of this
what is happening shores.
there are other features which must causa disquiet to Mr Amory.
Unemployment, though silji low by pre-war starfanda, rising. There are "black spóls" in South Wales, where tinplate mills have closed, in parts of Scotland, and in Ulster.
For the first time since long befora tho war steel surfcit,
Some planta
alowed their operation.
have
Failing demand for oval haa led the Coal Board to suspend recruitment for the first time in Its history.
Building motivity has fallen. The aircraft industry is paying off, workers.
Already tried
You may suggest that these
conditions could quickly be corrected it the Chancellor were to relax the credit squeeze,
But do not be too sure of that. In the US. that remedy has already been tried. Money has been made cheaper and plentiful. But business activity has continued lo faller,
more
Why? Because the confidence
of business men, has
severely shaken.
Something stronger cheap
been
than
la needed to money resiore la cul in taxation.
Americans are now almost unanimous that nothing less will bring back the boom.
I say that Mr Amory should forget all about the tlle Brown Book and stat thinking along precisely those lines.
Instead of werrying about "pressure on consumption" he should be planning a shot in the arm for Britain,
He should cut taxation, not merely for the better-off but for the lower-paid workers as well.
He should give such a dillp work and enterprise to hard that all the factories and plants and workshops in Britain will 01 full be busily throbbing throttle.
beyond our
CA
Which
Britain, as the world's biggest plain English, tax the people more in A world-wide slow-down are. trader, cannot be immune from the next
that they plain for nil to see. Budget so can buy less in the shops,
The council members are at paine to emphasise that the views they express are "entirely.
new occupant at
had Treasury, it was cald, stressed that there could be no Jet-up
the In
balile against Inflation.
The prospect of an extra dose of taxation could not be ruled out even though Britain atrendy suffering from a surfelt of that particular medicine. SECOND. consider the bidding statements In a 2s, Brown Book, asued recently, which rejoices in the title the report,
was
their own."
They have noi sought. 40 tender advice as to the con- Chancellor clusions which the for-
should reach."
of First Report of the Courell
on Prices, Productivity, and Incomes.
This report is addressed
to
the people of Britain. It is in no sense a statement of official policy.
But it would be foolish to write down its importance on that account.
These are the wisest words in
For make no mistake about this If Mr Amary follows the line of the so inaptly- named "Three Wise Men" he will go down in history as the most disastrous Chancellor Britain has had since the War,
And considering what some of the others have been like that would indeed be an achievement in disaster.
it would be utterly wrong to underestimate its impact on the who is a Chancellor
Ha achievement would be to mind of more at home with farmers' engulf Britain in a slump. meetings and fat stock prices slump from which It might take than with intricate problems.
economie years to recover.
Scrapheap
AND what
are the
views of
A the three men, headed by have drawn
Lord Cohen, who up this report?
THEY CONSIDER that the deflationary measures of last autumn must be continued even at the expense of an increase in unemployment.
in
THEY BELIEVE that order to defend the pound, one British working men
end women must be thrown out of a job to rot and moulder on the scrapheap of unemployment.
THEY ARGUE that "the pressure on consumption should be lucreased."
WHY A SLUMP?
A
Because the Three Wise Men" are prescribing a remedy for the wrong disease.
They put forward measures to counter Inflation.
But it is not billation which
is the real danger in Betaln today.
the I 1
precise enemy that
opposite. The
threatens us now is deflation. This is a worldwide develop- ment. Look what
In
happening.
the United States?
Industrial deepening recession. production has slumped by 10 In just over a year. per cent Unemployment nears the 5,000,- 000 mark.
In Canada? Falling production. more unemployment,
In Germany? Even here the edge has been rubbed "miracle boom.”
Very Fine Cognac
MARTELL
CORDON BLE U aleo THREE STAR. VBOP and EXTRA
Obtainable Everywhere Sole Agents:-DODWELL & CO., I
off the
In a year raw material prices have crashed by nearly 3s. in the pound. The world's harbours are starting to be cluttered up with idle ships.
and rivers
many It is true there are bright spots in our coonomy. The booming car trade is as
cxample, outstanding
But
Big surplus
Cummings
ALY KHAN
SIR WINSTON · LATEST BULLETIN
Zave in
WILDINGS
ELWES AND TESSA LELOPEMENT
"Ah, a big man to think about.
Put yourself in the position of a foreignKT.
"Three Wise Men" Well, the think the answer lies with the unemployment queues.
What madness! the
In what circumstances would
confidence in J'ou have pound-
to by
taxation Government's
high spending.
slashing the monstropely
And here is a suggestion how With a brief
he might start
If there must be Gomme un
ΣΕ
Britain's employment in Britain I am in role to the Counell on Prices, you know MAN Mr Amory afford to cut
producing favour of confining it to those Productivity, and Incomes: were
"Thank you for your work. Laclories
Us such three men who give taxation? No doubt what-
After consideration There will be flat out, OR ever about that.
there were deplorable advice.
can now diapenas Mr decided I WAY Quite In the coming If you knew a big surplus
outside L queues of workless year on the basis of existing tax
Amory can set about reducing with your services.” the Labour Exchanges? rates.
RODERICK MANN'S show business
YES,
Lho best
ELVIS IS THE GREATEST
says MISS BLOOM
LTD.
such a pretty blue), LA
I
BEGAN to warm towards Claire Bloom when she suddenly exploded: "Dammit-stop talking to me as though I were a Girl Scout," and I said, "You mean Girl Guide," and she said, "Well-whatever it is, stop
it."
She was sitting opposite me when she said it, looking rather beautiful in a tragic sort of way and eating a rice dish which she kept spilling,
"I am not," she said, "a lady. Everybody thinks I am, but I am not. Cecil B. deMille in Hollywood thought I was a lady, 50 I had lunch with him and convinced him I wasn't."
She upset a glass of water all over me to add emphasis to the point.
"What did you do," I said, "that I can put in print?" She blushed pretilly and stopped looking tragle and said she wouldn't tell me.
"Because I've been at the Old Vic, because I've been Juliet-that doesn't mean I'm not a woman," she said..
"No, indeed," I said.
"Oddly enough," she said, "In Hollywood they mostly think it freakish to have acted with the Old Vic. They think of it as something.
rather odd that one does in young out here.
another language.”
It's
the
Californian sunshine.'"
I
"They think right," said, "judging by the way most people talk in Holly wood."
"You
NO DELAY She paused for effect and widted for me to say go en, so I said go on and she did
week
PABELKY
She never misses one of his films
have
Hope and Crosby, it seems,
are planning to make another "Road" Alm together;
The Road to the Moon,
"Crosby's will only be a bli pari, of course," said Hope patronisingly. "But I m working with him. He's my oldest friend. Few people have friends that old...........”
Then she said,
"I couldn't think of a thing know, I did The Brothers to say to Elvis, so I congratulat Karamazov out there, and ed him on his new car and he then The Buccaneer both leaned over me again and said: made
"They told me it'd take with Yul Brynner. The last to deliver and I told them: one was wonderful. I play When Elvis wants the brawling, knife-tossing he wants it NOW."
"What did you do?" I asked. daughter of a pirate captain
"This time," she said, "I fed who looks like a boy."
the room."
HEAVEN.
"You are miscast," I said. "There ought to be a law." "It was heaven," she said, ignoring
me. "Such
I naked Hope about tho now film Paris Holiday which be with French comedian Fernandel.
"I tell you, boy," said Hope, something comic in
"it's bad enough having one
tho picture. But twol" There was a groaning and at the other end of the Liyo,
"Despite that," I said, "I bet you see all his pletures" "Ob. Indeed I do" Bald Miss Bloom. "Elvis is the greatest,
I asked her if there was any a hope of her working over here
change from being a lady," again permanently and she said,
alas, there wam't, "Miss Bloom," I said. "I
am fast rovising my opinion
of you. I begin to suspect
SO QUEENLY
"I love living in New York," that deep down inside you the sald, "and anyway,
they
"How did you get on with Fernandel?" I asked. "I moɑtin to remember rumours,...*** "I certainly hope you like the picture," cut in Hope. "Yeah, I certainly hope you like it”
Why do you certainly hope Ì We?" I asked,
"I got money in it," mid Mr Hope
LOVE IS BARRED
to
HAND IT
Anna Neagle, She'll try akým.
probably like Elvis Presley don't make pictures over here thing once, Sho was
or something equally shat- with parts for women." tering."
"Deep down Inside," she wald, in her breathless Jullet
"I think Elvis in
She is, of course, qulle right. Queen Victoria. She was Odette. It remained for Hollywood to Now she's venturing date bebop tako
appear in a Day this fragile, talented territory to beauty and with its expert film The Lady to a Square, Com
etar Franklo Vaughan. alchemy-convert her from
I talked with her husband Indy-En-waiting into a queen, "My worst suspicions
Now a queen she intends to Herbart Wilcox. confirmed," I said.
But a queen stay.
with tho "When wo were making The Instincts of a woman....not Brothers Karamazov," she said, a lady,
"Elvis was
on the next sot HOPE ON THE MOON
making Jailhouse Rook. I was teken over to meet him. When
we met ho lesandi right over ma
art feared: “Honey, how
old
DOB HOPE called me from
"D& New York.
that Crosby's YOU BOO
are you? L recoded a fow going to be a father agalo?” ha yards and said: "Oh, much too sald. "He's down ät Palm old for you, and be rasped: Springs right now practising Imponible.
Look: baby-sitting.” Most men
"One's got to move with the times,” he said. "You know, if we revived those old, time Piccadilly Incident and Spring in Park Lane today, they'd be laughed off the wozden, tahal
"Love in a rudo✨ word:ÎN. filme today. You just can' baro a mán say to a womany -K. ́ ́ levo 'you? Tho' - tornare audiences would *pisos.spark."