TREND OF TRADE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19697, 1 August 1938, Page 7

TREND OF TRADE

BALANCES IN BRITAIN QUERIES IN COMMONS (British Official Wireless.) Reed. 1 p.m. RUGBY, July 29. Replying to Mr. A. V. Alexande (Lab., Hillsborough) who raised the question of the state of trade and the adverse balance in overseas trade on the motion for the adjournment of the House of Commons, the President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Oliver Stanley, said the latter was a matter which must give the Government cause for constant and anxious attention. The course of overseas trade, however, had altered between the first and second quarters of this year. In the second quarter the visible adverse balance had been lower, month by month, than in the corresponding months of 1937. The tendency now, therefore, was to an improvement in the visible balance of trade. Speaking of the delay in the negotiation of the Anglo-American trade agreement, the urgency and importance of which a Labour speaker had stressed. Mr. Stanley pointed out thai the time taken so far hardly exceeded that required for the negotiation of the trade agreement between the United States and Czechoslovakia—a negotiation which was a great deal less complicated than that between the United States and Britain, involving as the latter did, partners in the British commonwealth of nations, as well as British colonial dependencies. He reiterated assurances constantly given by Ministers over the past few months that Britain entertained a very strong and anxious desire to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion and to obtain, as a result, a treaty fair to both parties, giving expansion of trade between them and leading to an expansion of trade elsewhere in the world as well.

Mr. Alexander, speaking on the motion for the adjournment of the House, emphasised the alarming decline in British trade, and increase of unemployment and stagnation in industry, especially in shipbuilding which'was endangered by the diversion of iron and steel to armaments. He said that there was no real remedy, except by an attempt to restore international trade. Yet the discussions with Australia apparently had resulted in a deadlock.