A Brightening Outlook Whatever the cause or causes may be
held to be, there are definite signs that the country is looking up. The pound is rising in terms of foreign currencies, and has all but touched four dollars in New York. Unemploy- ment figures are unexpectedly down by nearly 60,000 for the present week. Reports of reviving activity in staple industries like iron and steel increase. Both the volume of business and the trend of prices on the Stock Exchange are distinctly encouraging. It is far easier to make too much than too little of tendencies like these. There is nothing yet to justify expectations of the general world recovery without which .British trade can never ...regain its old prosperity. - But certain grounds for appre- hension—the fear of the fall of the Bruning Government in Germany, the fear of actual war between Japan and China—have disappeared, and though it would be too much to claim that the apprehension has given place to confidence, at any rate relief from anxiety is finding tangible expression. Gradual improvement is a far more hopeful sign than any meteoric spurt.
