WRITERS on economical subjects who are too much dis] to look on the dark side of things, like Mr. A. J.|P® Wilson of the Investors' Review, are much disturbed at the great excess of im rts over exports shown by the British Board of Trade returns. It has always been great, but last year it showed a considerable increase, and pessimists being apt to forget that an average comes from the succession of increases and decreases, last year's increase has been treated as a proof that England is beginning to outrun her profits, and live on her capital, a course which to a nation as toan individual can only have one ending, if it is not checked in time. Writing on this subject on the 18th} of January, the Globe says Sir Robert Giffen is a cheerful optimist, and we only wish that we could entirel share the comfortable sentiments which he entertains on the subject of our foreign the ea ease exports for 1898 tide. He has sot himself to desi with wore or x as against imports which amounted to £470,000,000.. Now it is clear that the foreigner dees not pay us an agreeable little annuity of two hundred and thirty or forty millions, and the question is how it is paid for. Sir Robert would have us believe that the equivalent for this enormous difference is supplied by what we may perhaps desetibe as our hidden exports. These comprise the ships which we export, the freights on out imunense carrying trade, the brokerage we obtain as the clearing-house of the world, and the interest on our capital invested abroad. None of these, of coure, appear in the trade returns, but they must certainly not be set aside in any attempt to determine our real commercial position. A man may be making three hundred year and spending four, yet if he has ten thousand pounds in Consoly his financial ition is assuredly not unsound. But essentially unsatisfactory if he is spending his capital, and that is exactl; what we should be glad to be aasurei that Great Britain is not doing. We are afraid that Sir Robert Giffen will not eon-vince the public that this is the case. We are face to face with the fact that imports for 1898 showed an increase of nearly [twenty millions on those of the previous year, though none of the hidden pores" show an increase which can balance that advance. To resume our fen thousand in Consola were being deawa parallel——it looks very much as though the upon to meet the lack of trade in the shop, and that is a very uncomfortable reflection indeed. Wo are quite prepared to admit Sir Robert's contention that the business is not being pushed in certain directions, because they are no longer so profitable as they were; but we wish he could show us in what other direction we are croating fresh business to make up for what is abandoned.
It is very well known that for years England has been importing a Great deal more, in nominal. value, than she exported, but yet has got richer instead of poorer, the fundamental explanation being that for every sovereign's worth of goods she sold abroad she got back goods worth thirty shillings in London. There is no indication that England's stock of precious metals or valuable securities 4s diminishing, and she does not issue loans for foreign countries to take up, therefore her imports must be to a great extent paid for by the goods she exports. They are paid for in wt by what the Globe calls our hidden exports;" and until it can be proved that our: stocks of precious metals are being drawn or that our holdings of foreign value show an important diminution, there is no reason to fear that our Consols jate being drawn upon to meet the lack of trade in the shop. There is very able article in the Times of the 18th of January last, based on Sir Robert Giffen's paper. After deprecating the habit of excessive trospection, which drives some men to a confessor, others to a doctor, lethers to an economical authority like Sir Robert, the Times explains that to too many forgie s ures such as those given in the of Trade returns are a delusion and a snare.
They show to the cursory observer that the imports of this country are greatly in excess of its exports, and a second glance reveals the yet more alarming fact that the excess is apparently growing. A great many people have on these grounds worked themselves into a state of acute apprehension. They argue that if we import and consume more goods than we send out, to the extent of one hundred and sixty millions sterling per:.aum on an average of three years, British industry must be languishing,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.