What we have seriously lacked is the absence of national effort in the way of industrial propaganda. We do not mean a blatant sounding of the British trumpet, but an organized method of telling other peoples of our achievements.
Misstatements are made in foreign countries concerning British industry, sometimes deliberately by people who are unfriendly. There should be some way of answering these attacks. This might be called negative propaganda, but it is highly necessary.
Of positive propaganda there are many ways in which industry could be helped, such as the provision throughout the world of accurate, up-to-date news of interest for dissemination to the Press. Then there is the influence of British films, some of which might have an industrial as well as a general interest.
The question arises, too, of the holding of exhibitions and participating in others, and the sending of trade missions abroad to make contact with the leaders of opinion in foreign countries, and to explain what we can offer to the world.
There are, indeed, many ways in which useful propaganda could be carried on. All that is required is that pure statements of fact about Great Britain should be put before the world.
Sore people might well ask why industrialists, if they consider the question of propaganda so urgent, do not organize and pay for it themselves. The answer is that British industrialists are already spending a vast sum of money in advertising and sales efforts abroad. Naturally, these efforts are confined to the products of the firms concerned.
On December 31, 1937 4 Life Assurance Funds £18,943,285 Fire Insurance Funds. 1,099,000 Marine Insurance Funds Accident Insurance Funds Sinking Fund and Capital Redemption Funds General Reserve Investment and Contingencles Reserve esses Profit and Loss Account..
Capital paid up Debenture Stocks Organizations like ourselves have also made great efforts abroad. We have organized exhibitions, and sent irade missions to the Far East, to South America, and to most of the European countries.
But private efforts such as these must be limited in scope, if only from the standpoint of finance. What is urgently wanted in addition is a national plan to supply an adequate background.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.