TRADE RECOVERY

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 82, 7 April 1933, Page 8

TRADE RECOVERY

BRITAIN MAKING GOOD

LAST YEAR'S FIGURES

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.) LONDON, February 23. "We may still have to cut our coats according to the cloth, but the coats will be much, bigger than any reflecting man could havo imagined to be possible eighteen months ago. If the Budget will show that we are by no means out of the wood, it will also prove that the Government has established national credit as tho rock upon which the expansion of national industry can be built." , That is what the- Prime Minister (Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald) wrote in .a letter to the National Conservative, candidate in the Botherham by-election. ■ Tho first estimates of Britain's trade balance for 1932 issued by the Board of Trade show a reduction in 'the adverse balance of £45,000,000 as compared with 1931. The figures for 1931 have been revised, and now disclose an, adverse balance of trade, including "invisible" exports represented by income on shipping services and investments abroad, of £104,000,000, compared with favourable balance.of £28,000,0.00 jn 1930. The adverse balance has now boon reduced to £59,000,000, or to about £30,000,000 if the war debt payment to America last December is left' out of account. The Board of Trade esti: mates have included Britain's war debt instalment, however, although the latter was made in gold which normally is excluded from the Estimates. Though the. Estimates are subject to revision from time to time as fresh data become available, they give some idea of the manner in which Britain's position has been improved in the past year. . The figures, which, are published in 'the "Board of Trade Journal," are as follows:— . '. ' ; . ' ■ ' ■ : ■ 1931. 1932. , £m. £m. Excess of imports of merchandisa and silver bullion anrt specie 40S 259 Excess of Government payments made overseas — 25 Total £ni4oß £m 314 -' 1931. 1932. £m. £m. Excess of Government receipts' . from overseas ....'... 14 — Xet national shipping income .., 89 70 Xet incomo from overseas investments .'...;........ 170 l£o Net receipts from short interest and commissions ....'. 30 30 Xet receipts from other sources 10 15 Total £m 304 £m 255 Total adverse balance £mlO4 *£m 59 Commenting on the figures in a speech, Mr. Leslie Horerßelisha, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, described the result as "one of tho most, miraculous rehabilitations ever recorded in history." ,