WORLD TRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 98, 28 April 1930, Page 4

WORLD TRADE.

HOW THE EMPIRE FARES. AN INCREASED SHARE. The study of the many problems connected with the development of the trade of the British Empire has been handicapped hitherto by the lack of reliable statistics, collated in a useful form. The publication, however, during the past month of a Memorandum prepared by Sir David Chadwick, secretary to the Imperial Economic Committee, comparing the position of the Empire as a whole in world trade in the years 1913 and in 1925 to 1927 (with figures for 1928 where available) goes a considerable way towards remedying this defect. The relative importance and direction of Inter-Imperial trade have been also examined, and although the figures are somewhat out of date, owing to the impossibility of obtaining later statistics, they afford valuable information on a subject which, of late, has rightly attracted increasing attention. The principal points in the memorandum may briefly be summarised as follows:— (1) In the aggregate, the trade of the British Empire has progressed since 1913 faster than the trade of the world as a whole (2) Trade between Empire countries and foreign countries shows a tendency to expand more rapidly than trade between the different parts of the Empire. (3) The Empire is becoming of increasing importance to Great Britain as a source of supply and as a market for her products. (4) Practically all the leading members of the Empire look to the remainder of the Empire to provide markets for at least 40 per cent of their exports.