BRITISH TRADE RECOVERY

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21970, 19 December 1936, Page 4

BRITISH TRADE RECOVERY

"CONTINUAL EXPANSION" GREATER PURCHASING POWER OF WORKERS ' ! (BRITISH OFFICIAL WIBELESS.) (Received December 18, 2.5 p.m.) RUGBY, December 17. The President of the Board of Trade (Mr Walter Runciman), in a speech at Liverpool, reviewed Britain's progress towards recovery. Employment, which was the great test of prosperity, had in five years increased by nearly 20 per cent., and industrial production by 40 per cent. The period had been one of continual expansion in British trade, while the trade of the rest of the world had been shrinking. There was little doubt, he said, that the purchasing capacity of the British working classes was greater than at any time in history. That was because of activity in internal trade, and also because, long before the Great War and the great depression which followed the war, a social system had been built up which spread out purchasing capacity in, wider and ever-widening circles to workmen and their families. "Imports into this country a head of population are about two and a half times those of France, three times those of Germany, and five times those of the United States," said Mr Runciman. "The volume of exports of United Kingdom goods during the first nine months of this year was 20 per cent, greater than for the corresponding period of 1931. For manufactured articles the increase was 25 per cent., and nearly every group showed an increase in the excess of exports over imports. Manufactured goods increased from £45,000,000 for January to October, 1931, to £119,000,000 for January to October of this year." The real explanation was that in the last five years the Government had been doing what it could to keep an "open door," and to lower the general level of world barriers to trade.