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Show GREAT BRITAIN EXPECTING DARK CLOM LIFT LONDON. Hoc 28 The people of wc.it Britnin look forward lo a n w year full of financial and political difficulties dif-ficulties but With greater optimism than they would have though! possible a few months ago. A "new world fit for heroes to live in" which was an ideal of the war has mil vet been fully attained at home i and Internationa problems which I brought on the war still are hanging over the head of the nation. Yet the British people are trying to face the future in an invincible faith in the nation's na-tion's ability to conquer all troubles The most cheerful optimisi of nil is Premier l.lod George ruder the- lea ! :.-hip of his unflagging faith that ..n thing Will work out for the besi Ihe clouds of despondency, pictured b. the newspapers as thickest when thei chancellor of the exchequer declared that the nation was heading for bankruptcy, bank-ruptcy, say Britons have Visibly lilted A foremost cause for confidence Ifl ihe steady commercial revival and cessation of labor troubles) which Brit ons hope will continue These give ground for prediciion by optimists thai Croat Britain will return to normal nor-mal conditions sooner ihan other great Boropean countries which engaged in the war. Manufacturer:-- in many lines have business booked far ahead. The cotton cot-ton trade, one of the basic British industries, in-dustries, la said to have all (he orders it can fill for the nxt five years. Shipbuilders saj they are in the same happy condition They have yet lo be convinced that America will be able to take away the former British supremacy In the carrying trade They base their confidence on the belief that while the British are a sea faring race, the Americans arc not. Apparently they believe that American Ameri-can ships built in the war are rie-stined rie-stined to be bought eventually by distinctly dis-tinctly maritime nations Thell confl dence however, is not ironclad. Lord Inchcape told the shareholders of one Great Britain steamship company that if the American government turned over its ships to private owners, Great Britain need not be afraid, but If 'he American peoph were to be t.-.xed to build up then mercantile marine, th? outlook for the siuppinc Industry in these islands was nothing hut rosy British bankers ?nL merchants look forward to a great increase of business with South America in 1920. They i cpecl to hold their pre-war cusiomers and lo gain much of what Germany lost. They profess to discount the prospect that the United States will acquire control ot the south American Ameri-can field. Many nations are anxious to buy! 1 1 "in Great Britain. How some of them can pay is a problem. The decline in exchange rates had a depressil effect 'n American trade but exchangi With France, Italy and smaller mar is faorabh lo Ureal Britain Against ihese reasons for business confidence stand two handicaps in the ; form of financial and labor conditions. I The national debt appears appalling to j ihe British public' bin optimist6 argue that it Is smaller than was the debt' after the Napoleonic wars. tneaSUD I by ihe country's wealth and potential producing power. The question of clearing the decks by some form of a capital levy is still 1 ;it the front and may be one of the ourn.ng political questions of the year The nationalization of mines and j railways is another British problem and with It are linked questions ed hours and wages which confront all industries in-dustries alike and which England shares with America, li has been said that Great Britain's recovery aftei the Napoleonic wars was possible through i underpaid labor, but British emplo) ers do not expect this to be among i the assets of the future. On the eon itrary, many industrial leaders Bay British industry is facing a question whether the stead increase In wages I may not become a dangerous bandi-j 'can in competition with other coun-1 coun-1 tries. Labor has other prospective benefits in the nromise of Premier Llovd George's great scheme for building comfortable workmen's homes throughout the count r. which is just bi kinning to materialize, and in plans for Insurance against unemployment which have not yet developed. The principle of the latter plan is that all men out of work through no fault of their own shall be assured of a respectable re-spectable living as a right, without any taint of pauperism Ii eland still is regarded as one of t he- government's most difficult and threatening domestic problems Marl' forecast of the new home rule bill met nothing but opposition from all Irish factions The Sinn Fein, with n majority of the Irish votes, threat enerl to boycott the scheme as it boycotts the British parliament India and Egypt are being weighed in the balance with hope? and fears Sfl intense as those centered upon Ire land India will see in the new year the beginning of the program of Edwin Ed-win Samuel Montagu for new measures mea-sures of self-government Establish ment of a protectorate over Egypt is now being resisted With much the same bitterness and same methods as the Irish resisted the present adminls tration in Ireland The new year Is expected to be vital for the fortunes of the army and navy The present plan is to reduce the army next year to virtually its prewar basis. Th navy is at a critical stage. Experts Ex-perts upon whom the country relied in the past, notably Baron Fisher, formerly for-merly first sea lord, and Rear Admiral Sir Percy Scott are for scrapping the okl establishment They declare that big battleships are obsolete, that sub marines and aircraft have revolution ized warfare and that submersible, and big submersibles, are the onlv craft of the future. Naval experts whose opinions com mand equal respect are skeptical and say "go slow." it js urged that a couniry whoso life depends upon iu navy should not drop its old machln ery before the nw has been provee beyond reasonable doubt. The new dispositions of Turkey an other lands of the Near East are al j most as important for Great Brltaii I as the fortunes of her own terrlior les. Setting up of new mandator; colonies and Islands involves many decisions. de-cisions. Seldom has the hat ion laced greater great-er or more various and difficult tasks than the new year holds for Great j Britain. Yet the average man is ab-jsorbed ab-jsorbed In one subject more than all of I the others together. This is the cost of living which has increased more ; In the past year than during the four ; years of war. arid Hie 30CS no turning point in sighi This means that a i large part of ihe population has to i readjust Its scale of living and that a large section of the old "middle-class" "middle-class" is becoming the new poor. |
