Unfortunately the hopes of an political as a result of which autumn revival were dashed by the
commercial transactions for domestic and export markets were seriously dislocated. Indeed, the flow of orders to industry did not show its normal' increase during the past month, and by the middle of September it had become fairly evident that there was little hope of an early and appreciable upturn in industrial activity. The unemployment figures for September do not yet reveal the effect of the eri for they rel: te io September 12. Nevertheless, they already provide some evidence of the growing uncertain! Thus, the number of insured persons aged 16 to 64 employed in Great Britain fell by 22,000, to 11,380,000, between August 15 and September 12. Concurrently, the number of unemployed persons on the registers of the employment exchanges of Great Br in rose by 39,376. Between August 23 and September 13, 1997, employment showed a decline of 10,000 and unemployment an increase of 30.000. The movement was therefore slightly more unfavourable this year than in Compared with September, 1937, unemployment in Great Britain shows an increase of 459,000 and employment a decrease of 326,000. Business activity is now running at about 10 per cent, below last year's peak. Hitherto, the decline has been most marked in the leading textile industries and in iron and steel Thus the industries in which the proportion of insured employed showed an more than 10 per cent. between August, 1937, and the corresponding month this year, include the cotton, wool, rayon and linen textile trades, which have been badly hit by the shrinkage in exports. In addition, the list of industries includes iron ore and ironstone mining, and the pig-iron, steel-making and rolling, and tinplates sections of the iron and steel industry. The slump in the tinplates trade, like that in the textile trodes, is due largely to the severe fall in international trade. The setback in the iron and steel industry proper has been intensified the accumulation of excessive stocks last year. As soon as consumption began to decline, consumers naturally decided to refrain from purchasing additional supplies until their stocks hed been reduced to dimensions commensurate with the lower level of consumption. A third group of in-Gustrics in which the proportion of insured persons unemployed last August was more than 10 per cent. akeve the level of a year ago in-es pottery, earthenware and car-"be: severe recession in these reveals the decline in the corsiruction of middle-class houses,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.