On June 12, according to a recent. Reuter message the House of Commons without a division agreed to a financial resolution for extending from £26 million to £80 million the Himit of guarantees which may be outstanding under the Export Guarantees scheme. A memorandum {issued last month by the Board of Trade showed that since 1926 when the scheme came into force the total Value of British exports to all countries in respect of which guarantees had been given amounted to £123 million. The guarantees had been given without cost to the tax~ payer as the premiums received had fexeeeded the premiums paid and the administrative expenses. The growing demand for the facilities thus offered made It necessary to contemplate application to Parliament for a Femoval of the restrictions. imposed. Those restrictions laid it down that the guarantees which the Board was empowered to make in connection with the export of goods wholly oF partly made in the United Kingdom, excluding munitions of war, should of exceed at any time the sum of £26 million and that no guarantee Should be given after March 31, 1940) of remain in force after March 31, 1950. The financial resolution. passet last" week not only extended the amount to £50 million, as already explained, but it removed the time, mits, Mr. R. S. "Hudson, the Secretary for Overseas Trade, said that the rise in the total of ' guarantees from £7 million in 1983 to £35 million in 1386 had proved that the Export Credits Department, originally started in 1919 as an experiment, could be regarded as part of the permanent trade facilities available to Brilish exporters.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.