BRITAIN'S DECLINING TRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 187, 9 August 1930, Page 8

BRITAIN'S DECLINING TRADE.

The British Chambers of Commerce have just issued, through their executive, a report on the condition of Britain's trade. It deals chiefly with the decline in British industry and the increase.in unemployment, and it concludes that the chief causes for these ominous "signs of the times" are abnormally high costs of production and "the unprotected state, of the home market." Due weight is, of course, attached to "the dislocation of business" through political disturbances in Egypt, India, and China. But it is a remarkable fact that, while Britain still officially professes faith in the doctrine of Free Imports, this representative body of British business men has fastened upon the lack of protection for the* British producer as one of the chief causes for the industrial and' commercial depression now prevailing at Home. We may observe -in passing that while the actual number of unemployed seems portentous enough, it is not in proportion to population greater than in the United States, where industrial conditions are supposed to be prosperous. Just now American agricultural prospects are very gloomy, and A has--been predicted that quite one-third of the farming population must speedily migrate to 'the 'cities, -there to swell the ranks, of the •unemployed, :But the loss of valuable markets abroad, and the .constant encroachment ;of •• foreign competitors upon ■ the. undefended. home \ • market, are great and growing evils, which'manifest, their effects only too plainly in the unfortunate industrial conditions now existing in; Britain; The Chancers of Commerce report is one more indication of the trend of British public. opinion in, the direction of some form of Protection; and no doubt: the demand for Empire Tree Trade, though it is clearly unattainable, has done much ( to emphasise the immense value of the colonial markets for Britain, and to shake public faith in the Cobdenite creed.