Britain's Future Trade
The representative industrialists who have been appointed the Board of Trade to sit as a Central Committee of Export Group have the duty of examining some of the problems which will con front British exporters after the war. We say some of th problems," for. it is certain that the whole problem can only solved by major national policy dealing with all the issues involvet and in co-operation with foreign countries. It would be idle imagine that minor modifications of our pre-war system wouli enable us to exist as a prosperous nation under the new Condition we have to meet. Our prosperity in the future as in the past wil depend on our capacity to export. Already even before the war la were finding it difficult to pay for our imports, with exports pre curiously maintained and " invisible" exports dwindling. After IN war most of the dividends on our foreign investments will hue vanished, and we shall not be able to count on the full recovery a our carrying trade. No policy based upon bargains with individua foreign countries will serve us. Nothing indeed can suffice but at increase of world trade based upon the higher standards of living a foreign countries, and the wise direction of our own production it enable us to take our share in the general increase. Our efforts mu' be directed to increasing the consuming capacity of countries win: have been under-consumers in the past, and this presupposes co. operative planning with America and other countries and a generous conception of the producing and trading necessities of those wht have been our rivals or dependants in the past. At home Britikl industry has to plan the direction of its own industrial and exportini effort, and abroad the Government has to prepare for co-operation with countries which take an enlightened view of trade relations.
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