LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE NEW PROTECTION.
[To TIM EDITOR 05 TUN "SPROTATOR.1
Sin,—A correspondent [Mr. H. W. Wilson] in the Spectator of July 4th makes the statement that I " put the interest on our foreign investments at £90,000,000. A Government Return of recent date places them at only f.62,000,000." Would you permit me to point out that there is no such Government Return P Certain figures are published in and from the Income-tax Returns, showing the income paying Income-tax known to be derived from investments in public securities in foreign countries and British possessions abroad, but no attempt is made officially to exhibit the whole income obtained by residents in the United Kingdom from foreign investments. In 1901, however, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in reply to a question in the House of Commons, expressed his belief that the income from such investments paying Income-tax was not less than £90,000,000. I am not aware of any other.
official statements on the subject. Your correspondent also remarks in the same letter that I have spoken of this interest on our foreign investments as an invisible export. This is hardly the case. I have spoken of our freight earnings and our commissions as brokers and merchants in the foreign trade as invisible exports, because they are the current products of our labour and capital, like the visible exports themselves ; but the interest on our foreign investments, though it affects the trade balance, is in a category by itself.
Previous page
