The Buyers' Market is Itere
The habit of saying that the sellers' market must come to an end has become general in the past two years or so. A few exporters— some exporters of motor-cars are said to be among them—have already come to realise that the conventional phrases described a hard fact. But when the President of the Board of Trade begins to talk of special measures to deal with the growing competition from the German engineering and shipbuilding industries and from Japanese textiles, then the British public generally must know that the blow has fallen. It will need considerable realism to reject the old fetish of restrictionism in these particular fields. A few industrialiSts, who are evidently more deeply influenced by un-, pleasant memories of the past than by hopes for the future, have already begun to run round in narrowing circles. Representatives of employers and unions in shipbuilding and engineering are to meet the President of the Board of Trade to discuss German competition. The Chairman of the Cotton Board, Sir Raymond Streat, is already in the United States, pleading that something should be done about the growing Japanese exports. There is quite a strong possibility that the old argument that the world would be better off if it could produce a little less will soon be heard again. It is therefore most important to remember the many national and international declara- tions in favour of a high and stable level of production and employment. It is most unlikely that the advance will be made with- out a certain amount of international competition.
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