Investment and Employment: A Doubt, a Reconsideration and a Proposal

The scene is a little village in the Vosges, just beyond the last houses on the outskirts, on the main road to Paris. A factory is being dismantled. Originally it was used for the production of cloth, and the looms, which are now being carefully packed into packing cases, are destined to be sent to Marseilles, and from there to Formosa. The looms are still fairly new, in good working order. They have been well maintained and only a short while previously they were still being used to weave cloth which had been eagerly sought after for more than one hundred years, not just in France but also abroad. Once they have arrived in Formosa these looms will be reassembled, and the cloths that will be woven on them will be sold to clothing wholesalers in Hong Kong, whose jeans and jackets will find their way into shops and stores in France and will be paid for, like most imported goods, in dollars. The cloth-spinning mill now lies deserted and abandoned and the inhabitants of the village are unemployed. In Parliament there is talk of retraining, and a minister has promised that high-technology industries will be brought to the village, but there has been no sign of anything so far.