It is neither as investors nor as trade competitors that people in Great Britain think of the United States. But while the third campaign of this war is in its opening stages and still offers too many momentous opportunities for any attempt at economic assessment, a westward glance may be timely, states the "Manchester Guardian." The export trade of the United States in the first six months of the war has been nearly one-third larger in terms of dollar proceeds than it was a year earlier. The value of exports has in fact been the largest since the early months of 1930. The value of United States imports has been even more substantially increased, though it is still smaller than it was two years ago.
Some valuable comments on these developments are contained in the latest survey of the Guaranty Trust Company of New York. In the first place, it is suggested that the expansion of United States sales abroad wil in time be limited by the diminishing dollar resources of the principal buyers. Secondly, so long as the United States does not purchase sufficiently abroad to have a current import surplus no fresh claims to American goods will be put at the disposal of potential buyers. Thirdly, any trade expansion that may take
tive, favouring some trades and ham-place will therefore be highly selec-pering others. For American business as a whole, the writer concludes, the principal effect of the war may prove to be readjustment rather than expansion,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.