The current issue of the Economist contains an article: "Britain's unplanned regions," Whilst the main point of the exercise is to stress that . the less prosperous regions of Britain hold the key to getting extra man= power to carry out the National Plan, the article gives an insight into the consequences for workers of British capitalism's inabilityto deal with regional imbalance. It is not merely a question of higher rates of unemploy-" ment, these themselves mask huge internal movements of workers, but of a variety of social consequences. To take housing, for instance, as a direct consequence of the imbalance: whereas only 20% of houses in the South-East are over 80 years old, in Northern Ireland the figures-is 40%, in Wales 32% and Scotlend 30%. Wages are higher in the growth regions, After allowing for extra costs, @ee, more expensive housing and travel, incomes per head were on average 10% above the national level in South-East and West Midlands but 9% lower in Wales, 15% lower in Scotland and 16% lower in the North. These figures are substantially more than the differences in productivity. In the case of Wales we have the anomaly that whilst the Welsh workers produces on average 18% more than the national level his average earnings are only the same as the national level. Northern workers also produce well above the average (over 8% above) but receive some 3% less.
The regional immigration - caused mainly by people going after higher wages and jobs = has reached large proportions. ‘Whereas in the 10 years 1951 to 1960 272,000 workers moved into the South-east (this is a net gain and is speading up, 75,000 moved in during the next two years) over the same period Scotland lost 130,000 workers, The immisration is not evenly spead thoughout the age groups, moreover, and this leads to a higher rate of natural increase in the growth regions. This is because younger workers are much more likely to move. Nor it is a question of only the less prosperous regions sufferings overcrowding, congestion on the roads soaring land prices, etce, are all intensified by this internal immigration.