Our Oversea Trade In view of the world-wide depression and
the multi- plicity of trade barriers it is distinctly encouraging to find that British exports in November, valued at £31,093,000, showed a decline of no more than £769,000, or 2.4 per cent., as compared with November, 1931. Lower prices might explain even this trifling decrease, for larger quantities of cotton piece goods, jute yarn and piece goods, and carpets were exported. There were, too, increases in the value of our exports of silks, leather goods, vehicles and rubber goods, and the woollen export trade showed a smaller decline than might have been expected. Imports, swollen a year ago in anticipation of the tariff, of course, fell heavily, by 26 per cent., and the re-exports, by which London merchant houses live, declined by 18 per cent. Our apparently adverse trade balance has been reduced by £106,000,000 this year, as compared with last year. But the important thing is that our expOrts arc no longer diminishing to any serious eitent, and that we seem to be recovering some of our lost customers. If the next few monthly returns show the same tendency, we may begin to believe that the worst of the depression is over.
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