From the archives: Scotland’s industrial progress, 11 May, 1950

HIGHER output in many important industries, a record number of people employed, and an increasingly valuable contribution to Britain’s export trade – these are the most satisfactory features of Scotland’s industrial and economic progress during last year, as revealed in the White Paper on Industry and Employment in Scotland, 1949, published today.

On the other side of the picture, the White Paper states that, except in the third quarter of the year, the general level of unemployment was a little higher than in 1948. Housing shortages are mentioned more than once. The Highlands are asked to go on hoping. Although the economic situation has, in the government’s view, made it impracticable to proceed with various projects, this does not mean that any have been abandoned. Mr Hector McNeil, Secretary of State for Scotland, claimed that progress in Scotland in 1949 had been considerable.

• archive.scotsman.com