OUR KEY INDUSTRIES.
Having briefly epitomized these very interesting developments in connexion with the L. M. & S. Railway undertaking, let me indicate why in the City considerable importance is attached to the movement and why there is a disposition to congratulate Sir Josiah Stamp upon the step which he has taken.
At the present moment industrial conditions through- out the country vary materially. In some of the luxury trades, among which may, perhaps, be instanced the artificial silk industry and such concerns as the gramo- phone companies, there is not only activity but consider- able prosperity. And, in the main, it may fairly be said that the prosperity is traceable to a desire on the part of the controllers of those industries to meet the requirements of the public and to meet them at satisfactory prices. In what is known as our key industries, such, for example, as coal, iron and steel and the cotton industry, and last, but not least, our railroads, conditions, however, -are the reverse of prosperous. Now while I am far from suggest- ing that these industries are indifferent to the needs of the consumer, and while I remember that many of the causes of the present depression are beyond the control of the industries themselves, I am disposed, nevertheless, to believe that in these great undertakings—some of their savouring almost of monopolies—there has been an insufficient regard to the fact that ultimately their prosperity depends upon public support.
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