The figures of our exports and imports for July recently
pub- lished by the Board of Trade are decidedly encouraging. Trade is prosperous enough to send the exports up, while the Government restrictions and appeals tend to keep imports down. For while our imports are about a million more than for July, 1915, our exports for July have increased in the last year by no less than eleven and a half millions and exceed the total for July, 1914, by two millions. Not only are the July figures the best we have had since the war began, but those for the seven months of 1916 show that whilst imports have increased by nine per cent., the increase of exports is very nearly thirty-two per cent. But while these statistics are enough to make the old-fashioned political economists tear their hair by their perverse disregard of the canons of peace-time finance, we must remember that the figures represent not volume but value, and that in the circumstances it is difficult to obtain a true comparison.
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