Improvement Estimated at Over One Hundred Millions Sterling: Position Better Even Than Before the War London, Jan. 26.
An official estimate issued by the Board of Trade places the credit balance of Britain in her over-seas trade last year at £96,000,000, which is £103,000,000 better than in 1926, when over seas trade showed a deficit on balance of £7,000,000 and £42,000,000 above 1925.
Speaking at Hendon to-lay the Re. Hon. Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, President of the Board of Trade, declared that the foregoing was based on a conservative estimate that "invisible exports" in 1927 totalled £488,000,000, made up of shipping charges, £140,000,000; in-). come from overseas investments, £270,000,000; receipts, short inter-fest, and' commissions, £63,000,000; and receipts from other sources, 'A Banker's Optimism London, Jan, 25.
The chairman of a big Londo Bank spoke to-day in optimistic terms of British trade prospects, Mr, Tennant, who presided at the annual meeting of the Westminster Bank, said that, in the view of those best qualified to judge, the total volume of the country's econ-comic activity is greater to-day than in any year since the post-War slump and it is probably greater algo than in the active pre-War year of 1913, The recovery from the set-beck' of 1926 had been suiciently quick and sustained to be in itself a testimony to the economic stamina of the country.
Mr. Tennant said that there was a consensus of opinion among economists that as a nation we are spending more than we did before the Great War. The masses are Jothed and better fed. The 'a few years back was a luxury of the rich, while to-day garage accommodation is one of the first preoccupations of architects even humble houses. freer spending represented a higher standard of living, better health, increased efficiency' and happiness, it was entirely welcome, Moreover, in the poriod.of rapid changes such as this country had been passing through a number of goods passed out of the category of undoubted luxuries into, or very nearly into, fa class of commodities regarded as necessities. Two factors which facilitated this change were tifle invention and mass production. The former had brought silk wear within the reach of almost every purse, while, by the latter method, the motor-car' had become cheaper and cheaper and, therefore, proferessively: available to wider and wider sections of the population, Mr. Tennant added that the artifieial silk industry, despite the great extensions of mills and machinery, still found that the demand ran far ahead of the supply.—British Wireless through Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.