WATCH THE EXPORTS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4235, 24 January 1940, Page 9

WATCH THE EXPORTS

POSITION IN BRITAIN. •‘ln the last war, when exports were neglected, it was found that the export markets, which would have been a godsend if they could have absorbed the labour demobilised from the Army and from munitionmaking had permanently shrunk. This must not be allowed to happen again. Markets cannot be ignored for four years and then simply picked up again where they were before the war. For the sake both of easing the inevitable post-armis-tice crisis and of maintaining the post-war national income, foreign trade must be kept going. Finally, export policy can be made a very effective weapon of economic warfare. The markets in which Germany can still compete with us are relatively few. In all the overseas continents and in those parts of Europe that can be conveniently reached from Germany only by sea, her trade is now completely * cut off. This vacuum will be filled by others if we do not fill it ourselves. It is elementary logic that the profits to be derived from appropriating Germany’s former overseas trade should go to those nations who have chased German ships off the seas and are bearing the burden of resisting German aggression. But this result will not follow unless we take steps to secure it.”—Standard, London.