From The Evening Standard, 31 July 1928

HOW TO ORGANISE A WAVE OF PROSPERITY

In the spring of every year there is a seasonal recovery of certain industries which have been held back by the winter. This comes handy for the annual speeches of the chairmen of the big banks and for the Chancellor of the Exchequer introducing his Budget. So at each of their annual celebrations the professional optimists assure us, on the strength of the spring trade, that at last the revival is at hand.

By July we always know that we have been had again. This year particularly so. It is certain that trade on the whole is bad. There are 200,000 more unemployed than at this date a year ago. Indeed, there are as many unemployed as in any July in the last six years except during the great strike.

The railway traffics confirm these figures. So does the condition of the staple industries considered separately—coal, agriculture, cotton, shipbuilding, iron and steel, motors, and (more doubtfully) building and construction. A small increase in certain classes of exports is the only favourable feature.

In short, both profits and employment are disastrously poor. Moreover, the more successful the efforts which are being made to restore the margin of profits by ‘rationalisation’, the greater the likelihood—at first anyhow—of increasing unemployment.