Rival Consumers
Mr. Oliver Lyttelton's comments on the problems, present and prospective, of the country's trade always deserve attention,- and none more than those he voiced at a luncheon of the Metropolitan Mayors' Association in London on Monday? What they amounted to was a sentence of blood, sweat and tears, or the equivalent, for
the home consumer. The world, the President of the Board of Trade pointed out, is short of everything To take one concrete and conspicuous example, it is disastrously short of textiles. That means that, in addition to the insistent home demand for textiles. there will be an immense foreign demand. British manufacturers and merchants may well take the view that trade begins at home, where supply is simpler and payment surer. If that view prevails, and foreign demand is deliberately subordinated to home, the loss of a great part of the export trade on which the whole of the country's future depends is certain, for nations which apply to us for goods in vain will not go on applying for ever ; we are not the only possible suppliers. The conclusion is clear. The home consumer must be severely rationed for a period that may be painfully long, and he must cheerfully make the best of it in the knowledge that if we de not export what we should like to keep here we shall be unable to import commodities that we need even more. Export will be difficult enough in any case, for some of the nations that need British goods most are least capable of paying for them. The first stet- towards surmounting that difficulty will be the creation of a sound exchange system. It is fortunate, therefore, that the adoption of the Bretton Woods proposals by the United States Senate seems increas- ingly probable. That will give a lead which no nation can decline to follow.
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