ECONOMICS IN BRITAIN AND IN FRANCE, THE BOSSES
By Tom Kemp
1959The NewsletterTom Kemp Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: headlines and words can be misread, and a caption or advert can run into the text. For anything you quote, read the scan.
A YEAR Of strains and surprises came to an end with the new currency measures and the outlining of the economic shape of Gaullism.
The sharp recession in the USA, which was beginning to spread alarm and despondency in the financial Press by the spring, was reversed in the latter part of the year. Unemployment and excess capacity remain higher than in the boom and there are few signs that another full expansion is in prospect.
Surprisingly, the effect on British trade turned out to be the reverse of that expected; insufficient allowance had been made for the involved, interacting nature of the relationships between the different parts of the world economy.
The main brunt fell on the primary producers; but even so increased borrowing or drawing down of foreign balances eased the strain—for the time being. Britain’s trade balance benefited, although the contraction in world trade was reflected in lower exports for most of the year.
Between slump and recovery The improved balance of payments position was in sharp contrast to the recession which began to engulf sections of heavy industry but spared all but a few of the consumer goods Events thus gave a decisive response to those who assumed that uninterrupted advance was the future prospect of capitalism. Instead economists were looking for some new force which would send the economy back on an upward course and prevent a severe contraction in 1959, The government found some temporary expedients, but they were not likely to affect the worst- hit industries for some months.
* i Launched with all the arts of demagogy—all the blame