Similarly, building construction, which since 1923 has been on a greater scale than in the boom period before 1929 had reached very large proportions in 1936 and has only subsequently tapered off. Foreign trade, the importance of which is second to none for a country like Great Britain, showed a steady expansion, the imports of raw material attaining record dimensions. In other directions "the same picture was presented. New capital issues to finance the expansion of industry reached a higher figure than at any time since 1928. Unemployment steadily lessened and the volume of retail trade enlarged as wages went into circulation, The host of statistics available to the enquirer all depicted a well-rounded return to prosperity. Moreover, the signs of an incipient boom had made their appearance and bankers and economists were concerned that measures should he devised in time to prevent its becoming uncontrollable.
Since the summer of last year, however, it has been clear that continuance of prosperous conditions cannot be taken for granted. There has been an increase in unemploy ment and new orders have fallen off; freights have declined and so has shipbuilding. It is true that the rearmament programme is being intensified but it is not a healthy economy that comes to depend more and more on such unproductive work; and although many personages of high standing have scoffed at fears of a depression it is well to keep the visible facts in mind.
It is also well to remember that no modern State, outside Russia to-d has a completely closed and self-contained economic system and unless the United States quickly moves out of its inertia it will certainly drag down all the other great trading countries. In short, while conditions in England are intrinsically sound, the future is mot divorced from developments elsewhere.
The Continental Side On the Continent, recovery has been more or dess general, but the character of the advance has varied from country to country. With Germany and Italy striving for autocracy, Spain torn by civil war end France wrestling with her perennial budgetary and currency difficulties no uniform progress could be expected. There is no need to analyse in detail the process of recovery that has taken place. On the whole it has been fairly complete and, as in England, the heavy industries and capital construction took their full share of prosperity.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.