Voices of Europe; Percy Diggle and Joseph Keiling.

Voices of Europe Milton Mayer American author and broadcaster a lecturer and professor of social research from the University of Frankfurt has been recording interviews with men and women who can help us to understand the basic conditions of life in Europe. The town of Commerce Dale in northwest England is famous in its own way for the manufacturing concern of Stead McAlpin and company. One of the many thousands of small independent family own concerns in England. The printers of some of the finest hand printed fabrics sold all over the world. The Stead McAlpin concern is 100 70 years old and has always been in the stead family. Today Milton Mayer interviews the managing director. We should call him the president of stat McAlpin Mr. Percy Diggle. Mr. Diggle a son in law of the late Mr stead served in the British colonial service in Nigeria for 17 years. Returning to England in 1934 on the death of his father in law to take over the managing director ship of state McAlpin here is Milton Mayer to interview Mr Percy Diggle Mr Daigle.

How have the post-war economic changes in England affected your concern for they have hit us very badly in the death field theory which would be payable. On the death of any members of the family holding shares in the firm would involve a valuation of the whole of Cusa by the Inland Revenue. And the parable on that which would of course depend on the pill to the amount of the valuation would vary between 40 and 75 percent of their holdings in the company. That is what we in America would call the inheritance tax. Yes

I believe that Mr. Diggle What is the rate of taxation today. They were going to taxation for a company like ours is the income tax which is applicable to companies and individuals at the rate of nine and six in the pound. In addition to that or the industrial concerns have to pay the profits tax and they also have to pay a tax on any distributive income. In total it would vary between 10 shillings in 10 and six in the barn or a little over 50 percent of any profits that may have been made. And before the war what were your taxes five shillings in the

25 percent of the profits. Air and art have materials and labor costs increased and if so to what extent. Overall very much. Labor costs have gone up between two wins three times the pre-war wage years and according to my will. That's close. Chemicals and other materials we would have gone up anything up to four to five times a pre-war cars. And the selling price of your finished product the printed fabric has increased by how much. Oh the EC2 uprooting price we charge now less than double what it was pre-war

hollow Mr. Diggle head of the economic revolution if you would call it one in England. The fact that your own personal situation where to give a group of very good evidence or that I might say that before the war my father in law or lived in the house where we are now sitting. And it was who Howard which I believe you would call a thirty five roomed house in America and he managed to live very comfortably indeed. One quote he could make tubes of overstatement and men out there I occupied just the same position in the

lives he did in those days. I may have been in a room house because it would be quite impossible nowadays to live in this log house to which my partner or you to live. Yes perhaps I should say Mr. De don't let the house in which we are having this discussion is Dalston hall which has been taken over by the Co-operative Society. I believe the local cooperative society and was once your father it was whole. That's going to try. Mr Deco How is the condition of the workers in the concern then affected by these changes. First of all our is the plant running to capacity now except the block printing department which is working for

time and for certain there it is working overtime. We are running well below capacity except for the block printing except for the block printing and a block printing is the the most expensive hand printing. Yeah stick to it. By far the most expensive but it does give the most beautiful results of in the form of printing in the world. And why has the market fallen off for your machine printing and why does the market so high for the expensive block printing one to the last part of that question first. Why has the high gloss and expensive block prints continued into Mon. That is due to the fact they do tours almost entirely exported to the United States of America and I think they're about the only

country in the world that has got the money to pay for these very expensive prints. With regard to the first half of the question why has that remark for the less expensive prints for the North. That is a very very difficult question to need who aren't. It's common throughout all Europe and I believe to a certain extent in your own country. I think here are and in other countries and Europe it's partly due to the very high taxation and their lives to this country. But I think it's due to or a certain lack of confidence which overcame this country and several other countries in the

latter half of last year. I don't know exactly what other readers no. One can give because there are there are signs at the present moment of an improvement in trade. There are very faint at the time but people have no more money than they had nine or ten months ago. I think perhaps one reason for this sudden stop each in the purchase of old text was that people who had the great craze to buy such things and whose television motor cars when they could get them new Well let's say and a

variety of other luxury goods and they felt they could do without the text diodes for the time being and your planet. Ordinarily that peak how many men does the concern employ in this patrol between four hundred and twenty and four hundred and forty and you are now running it about three hundred forty about three hundred forty eight of whom how many are employed in the block printing. Oh just about a hundred about a hundred. Mr doing all what is the condition of your workers. As far a problem seeing as it is concerned. Has it changed for the better or the worse since before the war. Oh I think it has definitely changed for the better. They are gradually getting more house to DirecTV

and they are better housing conditions than there were before the war when you were scribed this improvement to government activity. No I think there'd have been far better housing conditions if the government had not put on such a very great number of restrictive on their status as they did on those who live there is there would have been no 80 I take it badly needed housing reform in England under. In any case if there had been no government impetus in the direction from that clear I think that could have clearly shown by the facts before the war there were several millions of how it erected without this government being produced which

occurred after the war. What about leave the food and the diet of the workers of your workers. Has it changed for the better or the worse. Will is really going to meet it. Definitely for the worse they can relegate the amount to meat which they want the qualities of the price high and they cannot get the corn that they require. I think that they could turn out more and work harder if they had more meat to eat and meat of course is very strictly rationed along with butter Fat's eggs. Yes and she always wore those things right. Mr. Diggle is the government program of medical

care aid and improvement does it represent any improvement in the condition of the workers in your concern. On the whole rule I think it does. It's not a needy question to arm soon. They do get better facilities for the more mysterious diseases where specialists are wanted but only the local hospital here. They receive extraordinarily good attention. Before the war. And it was then in Darley supported by a bar and subscriptions and dome there. Now its entirely run by the state and as far as the actual medical

attention and care. I do not think from what I can hear that he tears in the bed but then in what respect would you say that on the whole. The condition of medical care has improved. Well they'll get a specialist down from outside Carlisle spaceless come from new through and perhaps from other places in the more difficult case too. Or they may send patients up to London they maced in Newcastle or wherever the local doctors think they can be best treated in very difficult cases. And prior to the government medical insurance program Mr. Diggle did any of your people any of your workers actually so far as you know go without medical care. None. What about the care of their letter say their teeth and eyes rather than lets

instead of taking critical cases the general care of teeth and eyes for example. Did they have as much access to medical care as they have now if they wanted to and they want we're prepared to pay for it if they could. But now. They I think a lot of the free will is they go to pay insurance money every week and they're going to get something sure whose. Thank you very much Mr. DAVIS. In the city of Carlisle in northwest England Milton Mayer interviews Mr. Joseph Keeling whose dialect gives him away as a Cumberland man. The killings have been Cumberland people in Carlisle As far back as Mr Keeling knows. He was one of four sons of a railway porter. He went to work as an assistant to a block printer in a fabric printing plant in Carlisle When he was 14 years old.

In one thousand twenty one he went to work for stead McAlpin and has worked there for almost 32 years. His job now is what is known in his trade as a back tenter. He feeds a 12 color calico printing machine. Of course Mr. Keeling hasn't been actually on the job all these thirty two years. There were five years from 1900 to 1945 when he served his country as an anti-aircraft gunner holding the south coast of England during the war. Back to his old job in 1945. He left it in May 1952 when a slump in the textile business cut the work week to four days. He took a job with the Imperial chemical industries making gunpowder but he was there only a couple of months because he found that the 40 miles a day of travel was consuming too much of his wages that McAlpin his old company which didn't want to let him go. Persuaded him to come back. Mr Keeling was married in 1033 to a Carlyle girl the daughter of a joiner they have three children two daughters and a son aged 17 and a half.

14 and 12. Here is Milton Mayer to interview Joe Keeling. This to killing you is your condition better or worse today than it was when you got married in 1933. The conditions are better. There's a simple reason. You have more money but of course prices are up to 33. When you were just married Mr. Keeling What were your wages. That he or she was awake. Thirty eight shillings a week. Let me see that's about $5 and 30 cents a week. Those were your gross wages. Yes. And what fixed charges did you have to pay out of those. Well led to one of them is national insurance. You had national health insurance set to showing these 11 pence about

40 cents. And what else. I had three sick money to pay. They took the for the company's sake plan three pence that's about a nickel and life insurance. I'd like when she was that six two and six. That's about 18 cents a week. And what was your rent in those days our rent was four shoes a week for showing. That's 56 cents. For how big a house. It was a small as it was just to window just a two room house. Then your charges here are fixed charges in those days that added up to. The dollar 19 cents a week coming out of your gross wages of five dollars thirty two cents and it left do four dollars and thirteen cents a week. In American terms

for you and your bride to live on. What your what your wage now Mr. Keeling what my boss where'd you see sudden poems like your gross wage. Seven eight and nine and that's it. Twenty dollars and eighty cents a week and out of that what do you have to pay in the way of fixed charges when you have a Bible printing enough of them from sure. That both of the two sets us well 10 and sent Miss our friend into her house rent is a dollar forty nine cents here and $7 forty nine a week. Yeah from Ohio a pipe used to paying for you union dues a pittance that's about a dime and

what else and home sick group Japan lets the company come you should go on the power company sick club. It's about 6:00 a.m. and then you hit let's see you get here and you knew all about life insurance we were paying a motor function in life and that's 70 cents let me up for a moment. The bar of $3 is 40 cents your gross to age in American terms today is $20 to 80 cents and there after your fixed charges of rent and medical insurance and the company's sick play and union dues and the pension scheme and life insurance you have 340 you have $17 40 cents a week

for your family your three children and your wife and yourself to live on your rent. Of course that they're in 33 you're paying for a very small place a two room house 56 cents a week rent. Now you're paying a dollar forty nine in American terms but that's for a taken a bigger house of course. What about income tax and educating. Well I don't think I'm jux you're below the income tax paying bracket. Yes you're not required to pay income tax so you don't have that charge would you say. That you're better off today not just in terms of money in town but in the things that you can buy with your money better off than you were in 33. Well I think we saw the conditions are better. I mean to

say I went back in 33 it was over much of a composite more than our week a week that would be about 35 cents a week you had pocket money. Yes but now I cannot myself that issues a ruling that's about four dollars and. 40 cents a week you're going to have for your own pocket money of course you can't buy as much today you can buy as much that you have like I mean this is cigarettes you know. And and do you know let's do the wiring for many and the problem is going to happen. Oh you're here your income today even of course here if you've been with the concern now for about thirty two years and you have a more responsible job naturally than you had when you first went with them.

If your income is about four times as much as it was years and prices haven't gone up that much airplay. No they're not four times as high as they were but I'm this $17 40 cents a week. You've got the wife and three children yourself to clothe feeding put in to put through school. How about holidays do you have anything much left over for holidays or what we can generate money as you point out shelling a lot of costly. I wouldn't want to work in a machine to work. Time your daughter that says she the 17 17 and a half year old come to nothing and she's working. She was working full time for a full time. You know what's her what's she doing and what's her wage when she was three and shoot machine used a shirt machinist and Rob ridge where she's pipe bombs a week five

pounds a week. That's not too bad that's about. 14 13 I have 14 hours a week. She's catching up with the old man. Your wife works part time work part time. What kind of work does she do it was boiling while she was a weaver. Oh she's a weaver. Yes. And had she been a weaver before you were married and then you would be you know we were all alike. And how much work does she have. Average I probably dredges about two pounds to about two pounds ten a week. Yes yes that's a that's about seven hours. So you manage to even manage a fortnight's holiday. Yes. What is there that the family can't afford to have

these days that you'd like to have anything very much. We locked up a cop going forward a car that comes awfully high and us to our to our ports. Petrol was gasoline we caught a terribly high but otherwise we're pretty well satisfied. Well I'm quite talking you don't find the cost of living really unbearable I mean you're like you're on you're you're able to make out I don't want 1933 just corruption now and that was when there were just the two of you refused to I want to warn you most of them. I asked and and still you were just just scratching it was really good Mike. He's made you really want them full time now are your fellow workers at the Concerned Women doing the same sort of work you're doing and you're the men in the Union with you.

I'm pretty well satisfied with the present condition. I was satisfied with the present conditions providing We've got full time without problems of course in the textile trade there's been a drop off that has been a drop off but at the moment Standish is on full time. So as long as there's full time work even with the cost of living here all of the men are pretty well satisfied. Yes there's the rationing hit you pretty hard are you are you getting are you getting as much to eat of the things that you really feel you need as you'd like to have. Well our family here was quite satisfied and my December in 1933 was plenty for them but you couldn't buy the food was there but you can buy it was plentiful but you couldn't buy it. And today seven more years and more years

after the war are England's Well I suppose much tighter ration than any other country in the world or in the West in the western world. But you can buy the food when there is you can afford options. You you keep thinking as you seem to keep thinking this to killing him. Back to those days of 33 and I can well believe that the unemployment was pretty bad then. Yes it was in England. How many men are out of work at the time when there was 3 million people of the world. Did you have full time all during that period. An hour I was on the job about six months earlier. Are there any changes Mr Keeling that you'd like to see made in the in the regulations of the country. What was quite so obvious was we're doing a Labor government with the

Labor government but I'm not satisfied with this movement conservative movement. I would your opinion was the good the Conservative government come back into power in in 1951. Well it was manly these young women and young people. But what becomes of him and what led them to vote Conservative. Well because the Conservatives promised so much. But the government promises these young people of course they haven't lived through that length through 1953. That's something that's pretty hard to forget and I take it then that you being satisfied with the Labor government you vote Labor and will go on. Thank you very much Mr. Keeling the program you have just heard is made possible under a grant from the fund for adult education an independent

organization established by the Ford Foundation. These programs are prepared and distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This program was introduced by Norman McKee and this is the end E.B. tape network.