Unemployment
Although there have been earlier periods when unemployment has remained at a very low level in this country which have given rise to optimistic beliefs that this was bound to continue, it is certainly true that there has never before been a period in which unemployment in Great Britain has remained low for so long. In the years since the end of the war it has averaged about 2 per cent. and apart from a brief period early in 1947 when it touched 2 million during the fuel shortage crisis the highest level recorded was in January, 1959. when it was 621,000 or 2.8 per cent.
It would, however, put the matter in wrong perspective to forget that in many other countries experience has been different. In Belgium during the years 1948-1954 it averaged 7.6 per cent. and in 1953 was nearly 9 per cent. Over Ihe whole 12 years to 1959 it averaged 6.6 per cent, (these and other figures are taken from United Nations and ILO Publications). Incidentally, Belgian figures over the whole period show an additional considerable percentage of workers partly or temporarily unemployed. In Western Germany, although unemployment has now fallen lo a very low level it was well over a million from 1949-1954 and averaged during the whole of the post-war years over 6 per cent. In Italy unemployment in all the years from 1947-1958 was not far short of 2 million, that is, between 9 per cent. and 10 per cent. In Denmark it has averaged nearly 9½ per cent. for 12 years from 1948-1959. In Canada it has averaged over 5 per cent. and in 1954 was 10.8 per cent. Austria and the U.S.A. are among the countries with relatively high unemployment at different times as also are Ireland and India.
Valuing the Rouble
On May 5th Krushchev announced in Moscow that the Russian rouble is being re-valued on the basis that one new rouble will be equal to and will be exchanged for 10 old roubles. Prices and wages are being cut by the same amount. This operation, which is like the revaluation of the franc, recently carried out by de Gaulles government, is the second of its kind carried out in Russia, as a similar operation was carried out in 1947. One obvious reason for this was given by Khruschev in that it will improve the roubles international standing. The new rouble’s official exchange value will make it approximately equal to the pound sterling. According to the Financial Times (6/5/60) another interesting explanation given in Moscow was that it is being introduced partly to simplify accounting and partly to simplify the techniques of electronic computers.
Another suggestion is that it is being done to help the growing Russian export drive. Among the products that Russia is now actively pushing into world markets are motor cars, heavy engineering goods, oil products and latest of all, the attempt to sell their new turbo-prop airliners abroad.
Back in 1936 a book called Soviet Export was published in Moscow in the English translation and in it the author M. Zhirmunski set out to explain why Russia’s attitude to foreign trade was quite different from the attitude of the other exporting countries. He wrote that: “In the case of every country with a capitalist system of economy, export trade is a direct consequence of the necessity of foreign markets.”
He quoted from Lenin the explanation that there is not and could not be a capitalist nation without foreign trade due. among other causes, to the fact that “capitalist enterprise inevitably grows beyond the confines of the community, the local market, the region, and subsequently even of the state.”
Things have changed a lot since then and it will be recalled that Stalin shortly before his death wrote that the time was approaching when Russia and the countries in the Russian economic sphere would he increasingly looking for foreign markets. It is quite evident now that in an increasing number of industries production, in the words of Lenin, has grown beyond the local market and has to be disposed of elsewhere.
Edgar Hardcastle
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