Favourable Reports Received from Various Trades London, Mar. 18.
The condition of the British coal industry kad reached its worst and was now improving, stated Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland, the Minister of Labour, in the House of Commons this afternoon when he moved the second reading of a Bill continuing for another year the suspension of the provision under which payment of thirty contributions in two years is made a condition of the receipt unemployment and "insurances Tle added that the reports received from the iron, steel, shipbuilding and cotton industries all showed favourable signs so far as the future was concerned.
rhe severity of the winter, he said, had postponed the recovery of] the figures for unemployment. but, with the departure of the frost, the unemployment figures last week showed an improvement of between 115,000 and 120,000 persons.—Reuter,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.