IMPORT TRADE RESTRICTED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 148, 25 June 1934, Page 4

IMPORT TRADE RESTRICTED.

REVIEW OF RECENT TREND. EXPORTS WELL MAINTAINED. LONDON, June 23. Compared with (he curtailment effected in Britain's imports 01 niantu.ici.ures by general tariff uml lulier duues Uie results ol the divorce of tsCei'lintc from gold, of Hie trade pacts with several iorcign countries, or even of the Ottawa agreements;, are slight, states £he "Westminster Bank Review' in an article 011 "trends In Britain's Overseas Trade." 'a lie "Review ' adds that the recent course of trade suggests that the Governments policy, whether fiscal or monetary, is less effective in diverting tr.idu into fresh channels than obstructing it. if the expansion of manufactured imports seen this year is maintained they will still be only three-quarters of the amount imported in 1931. (.Juite apart from any diversion of trade owing to the Ottawa duties, the proportion of Britain's imports from foreign countries has automatically fallen, owing to the duties on manufactures. If allowance is made for this distinction the remaining portion of the rise, the Empire's share of Britain's overseas trade, amounts only, broadly speaking, to a restoration of the proportion it represented before the collapse of prices of primary products temporarily reduced it. On the other hand, Britain's adoption of tariffs does not appear to have had immediate harmful repercussions on her export trade, which is sharing in the improvement seen in international trade. But, by raising still another serious obstacle to international intercourse, the British tariff has played its part in retarding that improvement, therefore hampering one factor on which hopes of. a full recovery of Britain's own export trade must depend.