BRITISH TRADE

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20507, 25 May 1938, Page 7

BRITISH TRADE

PROSPEROUS 1937 A CHANGE IN 1938 SOME DISQUIETING FIGURES (Official Wireless.) (Received May 25, noon) RUGBY, May 24 In the House of Commons the President of the Board of Trade, Lord Stanley, reviewed Ihe economic condiditions in the past year, and made reference to the Anglo-American trade negotiations and the position of the cotton industry. . He said that 1937, apart from a weakness towards the close of the year, had been an extremely prosperous 12 months for British trade. There had been hardly a section of British industry which had not been able to increase its production and profits, and where wages had not tended to rise. In the first lour months of 1938, however, there had been a certain slackening in the increase of production, the main reason for which was the fall in commodity prices, due in tlie first place to the war in the Far East, which w n s staving a much greater effect upon commodity prices and world trade than was fully realised. Depression in America The second cause was the influence of the depression in the United States.* where Ihe loss of buying power had had a most decisive effect upon commodity prices. In 1937 the United States was buying from abroad commodities and raw material at the rate of 81.U00.U0U dollars a month, whereas in the first two months ot ihis year the rate was only 49,000,000 dollars. Lord Stanley stated that the difficulties of the cotton industry through (lie fall in prices had increased the importance of the question of the reorganisation of industry. Dealing with the question of the adverse balance in trade, the Minister said llie adverse balance last year amounted to £52,000,000, compared with £18,000,000 the year before. The £52,000,000 was affected to some extent by a special transaction in silver amounting to about £11,000.000, but be thought, the adverse balance of £52,000,000 was not in itself frightening. H was true that the excess of imports of merchandise ruse from £346,000,000 in 1930 to £432,000,000 in 1937, but an analysis of the rise showed that it was not due to a decline in United Kingdom exports, which increased by 9* per cent. It was due almost entirety tu a rise in the price of imported commodities.

The figures for the first four months of this year, added Lord Stanley, were not so encouraging. Despite the beginning of a fall in commodity prices the adverse balance had increased, due partly to an increase in imports, hut even more to a decrease in exports.

A striking fact was that the whole of the increased .adverse balance of trade In the first four months of the year was covered by the Increased adverse balance with one country—the United States. Such figures were disquieting, and would have to be taken into account in the negotiations proceeding with the United States.