Of eer Bes: HORE MEN
r We referred.in our. ‘letter, to reacurs! Inst woek to the survey carriod our by the Institut f Directors, This involyed.sending a questiomiaire to 325 large firms,. éach_ with assevs of over £2 3500; ONO, More than half ho fitns rep lied and their conclusions: wero reported. in tle Financial.Times, of March 15th : “"The first two questions, comeerned tho abilities of companies to expand ~ production without extra, labour. or with more than 2°% of increased Inbour, »_Of. the 167 replies; received, about 100 said that ouput could rise ty. up.to, 10% without. more mens-;sThesaiwere mainly engaged in tem . tiles, engineering, paper, printing ond publishing, fubber, ‘plastics, toys and. linoloum, . Over 30 more corpan:.os:— mainly -in the chemica’ and alliod insistries,. wnetals, timber and furniture = “siggestedd that o:tput could go up by.more thun 10%... dine qui of the ten suggestei th. if they took.on 2%,more labour, production would ‘bound ‘ahead’. ° Warrly half of the companies replying snid,they ‘could increase ontput by 79 ri or more, with 2% more workers. : The third question was whether higher production would mean importing more raw mwterinis. Of the 166 conan- . 169 answering, this point, 101 aire all no inereaso, or only a slic hi increasd, if output went. up by 1.0 %-or under, Tho remaining 65 said oon, sumpiion of, raw naterials. wid rise by more than 5 par cent. mC CATASTROPHIC DACLING il PRODUCTION Io IN JANUARY : . Figures released by the Central Sictivtice] %ffieo during the week show .the heavy drop in production. which took place during sanuary. The drop was most marked for all industry (10 points below November - Gorparison with December is noi: useful because of the, -holideys — seasonally adjusted), -nilarge amount of which is accounted for by tha ‘décline in construction. However, manufacturing went dovi 5 ‘points too and the fact that. ‘the weather could have had such ‘an effect is only because the economy | is very sick. The following table illustrates the process: -