Hope for Exports
The cheer which the Chancellor of the Exchequer received when he announced in the Commons the rise of exports in January to £57,000,000 must have caused certain misgivings in the Board of Trade, where the practice is to treat the trade figures with sober conservatism and a due sense of continuity. It is true that the increase in exports has been going on for two months, the November figure being L30,000,000 and the December figure L43,500,006. But the November level was alarmingly low, and Sir Stafford Cripps, speaking more in the true tradition than Mr. Dalton, has already pointed out that the December exports included some arrears carried over from November. It is reasonable to hope that there will be no falling back into the slough of November, but a regular monthly increase of £14,000,000 would be nothing but a wild dream. The President of the Board of Trade certainly does not expect so much, for his most sanguine statement is that we ought to be back at the 1938 level by the end of 1946. Exports in 1938 averaged £39,o00,000 a month, but the index of export prices has about doubled since then, so that the target for December, 1946, must be about £8o,000,000. A steady increase of £2,000,000 a month would do the trick. In view of the recent achievements it does not seem too much to hope for, but the exporting industries may well find themselves a little out of breath when they reach this goal. Nevertheless, they have still to go on and put up the total by another 75 per cent. before the position will be really healthy. The cheers in the House of Commons will be some encouragement, but there is a long, long way to-go.
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