A Year's Trade
The well-known objective of exports 75 per cent. above the pre- war volume has a rather suspicious roundness. Moreover, the ex- pression " pre-war" has never been defined and it has become usual to take as the basis of comparison the year 1938, which happens to have been a rather poor year for British exports. Nevertheless the figure of 175 per cent. to be achieved as soon as possible indicates sufficiently clearly the general shape of the required curve of exports. It should rise steeply. The latest returns of trade, covering the whole of the year 1946, show that it is not do:ng that. It is flattening out. The facts that performance over the year rather exceeded official expectations and the maintenance of the present level of exports would give a fairly respectable total in 1947 make no differ- ence. They only mean that official expectations did not measure up to the country's absolute necessities and that a failure to go a-head fast will bring positive international bankruptcy within sight. December, 1947, is the latest safe date for the achievement of the 175 per cent level and it means something like a 5 per cent. increase in volume of exports in each month of the year. The volume actually fell in December, 1946, and Mr. Marquand, the Parliamen- tary Secretary for Trade at the Board of Trade, has already said that no great increase can be expected in the first months of 1947, owing to shortages of materials, and of steel in particular. In view of the effort and sacrifice which has already gone into the export drive there would be little point in harping on these depressing facts but for one thing. The number of persons employed in manufacture for export at the end of November was 1,44o,000, as against 990,000 in mid-1939. However great the difficulties of re- conversion and the re-equipment of industry, it is hard to explain how an increase of about 45 per cent. over the pre-war labour force of the export industries has failed to produce any appreciable increase over the pre-war volume of exports.
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