The Guardian (And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times.) FRIDAY, JUNE loth, 1923.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 June 1923, Page 2

The Guardian (And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times.) FRIDAY, JUNE loth, 1923.

COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICA. The financial, economic, and industrial conditions in the United States are discussed at length in the icjiort for last year prepared by Mr .1. .Joyce Broderick, Commerei.'! Counsellor to the British Embassy. Washington. He points out that it is only within recent years that the importance of foreign trade has been realised as a factor in the future development of the country. A great part of the unusual interest taken in the subject is undoubtedly due to the rapid and radical changes which American political as well as commercial relations with foreign countries underwent during the war and post-war periods—changes which advanced the country from the debtor to the creditor position, and which, by increasing the foreign demand for American produce and matniJc.ctures, resulted with the help of other factors, in a rapid upward movement of prices, a wide expansion of rural and industrial activity, an export trade of enormous proportions, and a consequent heavy disturbance of the international trade balance. In tlie seven and one-half years beginning with tho outbreak of the European war and ending at the close of 1921, the United States exported merchandise, silver and gold, to an aggregate value of over twenty-thousand million dollars. These l were not offset by imports, but were left to he liquidated by invisible items normally present in the international balance and by emergency financing of various kinds. In addition, there was a homeward movement of American securities, and a notable outflow of American capital through the sale on the United States market of the internal obligations of foreign countries and of foreign municipal, industrial arid other issues, as well as through tho purchase, establishment and extension abroad by American concerns of factories, mills, warehouses, mines and industrial plant of various kinds. Mr Broderick points out- that it is only by a continuous export of capital that trade can be maintained in anything like the volume required by the great expansion of industrial productivity which the war witnessed in tho United States, and lie further states that the need for new and enlarged markets for surplus production is shown by many developments in tlie country. Amongst those are the extraordinary activity of commercial and industrial associations, ell of which have special departments devoted entirely to the promotion of tho interests of their members ill the foreign field.