ADVERSE BALANCE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19023, 25 May 1936, Page 5

ADVERSE BALANCE

TRADE OF AMERICA ISSUE IN ELECTIONS NEW YORK, May 22. The Washington correspondent of the New York Times says that the Administration's foreign trade policy is likely to become one of the important issues in the coming campaign, as the report of the Department of Commerce published to-day revealed that the unfavourable .balance of the previous three months continued in April. For the first four months of the year, the unfavourable balance totalled £2,800,000, compared with a favourable balance of £4,200,000 for the corresponding period of 1935. Both exports and imports materially increased, however. In a luncheon address to the Foreign Trade Association to-day, the Secretary of State. Mr. Cordell Hull, defended the Administration programme, insisting that the adverse balance had resulted from the necessity of abnormal importations of ani-' mal products, because of the drought

and the enlarged need or. manufacturers for raw materials.

The Administration has, in effect, admitted that its position as a creditor nation makes an excess of imports over exports imperative, but the Republican Opposition naturally accepted no such thesis, and is expected to use the trade situation to the best possible political advantage.