June 15.
Waite we have every reason to look with satisfaction on our overseas trade, as shown in the latest Board of Trade returns, a question inevitably looms up in the background, Are we doing, as well as we might? On the one hand we find our exports for May at a total of £119,319,000 as against £64,344,000 for the corresponding month of last year, and £43,859,000 for May, 1913, which year is now taken as a good basis of comparison between pre and post-war figures. At the same time we have imports of peste con oblate £166,333,000, as against £135,- 612,000 in May, 1919, and '9,000 in the same month of 1913. We have improved our ratio out of all measure so far as 1919 is concerned, while the ratio with 1913 remains practically the same. We know that in 1913 interest on our investments abroad and payments for carrying services restored the balance of trade. To-day our invisible imports in the form of interest are no longer in the same proportion, but in respect of carrying services we are doing much better. Freights are infinitely high in comparison with pre-war days, and hence the income from this source as expressed in terms of pounds is s0 much the greater. And in anticipating a continuance of our great export trade, we know that practically all over the world there is the keenest demand for our goods, in connexion with which one pleasant fact is worth recording. This is the exceedingly great demand that comes from America for the high-class goods for which Britain is so justly famed, a demand that is increasing. But we must not lose sight of the point in question, how much business we are doing in comparison with pre-war days. An absolutely accurate comparison does not exist, but what there is shows that we are still below the old figure.
Taking the tables given in the Board of Trade Journal we find the declared value of United Kingdom produce exports for the first three months of 1913 to have been £127,310,000, and for the same period of 1920, £295,543,000.. Estimating the value of the 1920 trade on the basis' of 1913 we are faced with a reduction to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.