DIRECTION OF OUR FOREIGN TRADE.
An analysis of our foreign trade for the whole of last year brings out some very interesting figures. Perhaps the most striking features are the much larger purchases of our goods by Germany and the smaller purchases by Russia. As regards the latter country, trade generally with Great Britain was on a smaller scale, our imports from Russia declining in value by about £3,000,000, while exports to Russia declined by a little over £3,000,000. The figures of our trade with Germany are interesting, for while we imported from that country fully £12,000,000 less, German purchases from us increased in value by over £22,000,000. Mainly in consequence of a reduction in imports of cotton from the United States our total purchases from that country during 1927 showed a reduction as com- pared with the previous year of £28,500,000. On the other hand American purchases from us declined by about £8,000,000. The proportion of our exports of Overseas Dominions to the whole of our foreign trade was somewhat smaller- last year than in 1926, the figure as regards British exportsbeing 46.1 per cent. against 484 per cent., while there was also a decline of about 1 per cent. in the proportion of our re-exports.
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