THE year's figures of Great Britain's oversea trade show, as
was expected, an appreciable fall in the visible adverse trade balance—a smaller excess of imports over exports. The adverse balance for the year was £43,352,000 lower at £387,947,000. These figures take no account of the highly important invisible items, such as net income from overseas investments, net earnings of shipping companies and oversea earnings of insurance companies. Since shipping freights have been lower and production of many of the primary commodities in which British capital is invested abroad—for instance, tin and rubber —less profitable, it must be supposed that the invisible balance has deteriorated and has probably offset the improvement in the visible balance.
In any event an " improvement " in the visible trade balance, which results from the shrinkage of both imports and exports, is not an unmixed blessing. Exports fell by £64,034,000 to £532,491,000, while imports fell by £107,386,000 to £920,438,000, so that the decrease in the adverse balance was secured at a cost of further shrinkage in the value of oversea trade which can hardly be regarded with satisfaction. Such satisfaction as there may be comes from the knowledge that with lower prices ruling, the volume of trade has shrunk less than the value.
Most of Great Britain's leading export trades show lower totals for the' year, and cotton goods an exceptionally sharp fall. Machinery exports, however, increased and have thus displaced cotton textiles as the country's largest export.
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