London, June 9.
It is reported that the rumour of a royal engagement may re: Sult from the present visit of the King and Queen of the Belies "eho ariel Sri London today for a say of several Their second son, the Count of Flanders, mho has been staying at Ostend for some. time, according to. reports, makes frequent. visits to, England. 0 ace the daughter of one of Eng land's oldest ducal families. Reuter. the Government considered circu ances to be favourable they would Dealing with the general outlook, Ihe said that some feelings of Jeasiness, which did not seem to be well-founded, had arisen. He de-Precated both breezy optimism and undue pessimism and hoped that the House of Commone would Keep balanced judgment.
It was futile, he said, to base any estimate from' the income revenue jand surtax figures of April and May, jor to base any calculation for the: [whole year upon what happened the first two months, but he saw Ino reason to expect there would be Jany appreciable falling short in the yield of inland revenue, stamp. and death daties, as Well as income-tax land surtax.
They had no experience to make any reliable calculation, the Chance lor went on, of the yield of import duties. Any estimate must be, to fa. large extent, conjectural. latest. figures were somewhat dis appointing but were affected by the Whitsuntide holiday and the next figures might show a very different Jaspect of the situation, Comparing the existing situation with that. prev [Chamberlain declared that they' had {got to a position at which cent had been restored in the eyes of the British people and in those of the world. It had come about to '4n_ almost embarrassing extent.
The figures of unemployment which had been rising in 1920 and 3|1930 had been checked. The Stock Exchange price of 34 per cent. Conversion Loan last August stood at 77% and to-day at 88.
If Britain's position was compared ith that of other countries there iwas a good deal of ground for encouragement. The trend of trade during January to April as compar-Jed with the corresponding period in 1931 showed the percentage of the fall in imports in the United. Kin dom was 12 per cent. but the United States had suitored a fall of 30 per jeent. France 35 and Germany 36. French exports had fallen by 8 per Jcent. and those of the United States Jand Germany by 36 per cent. each, while exports of the United King: }dom had fallen by only about 7 per cent. __In volume, the percentage fall in imports to the United Kingdom the past three months of the car-rent year was nil, whereas in the [United States it was 4 per cent. and jin Germany 12 per cent. With regard to the Zah in the volume of exports, Germany had suffered a 21
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.