Mr. A. M. Samuel, Parliamentary Secretary of the Overseas Trade
Department, in in interesting speech last week to the Luton Chamber of Commerce, said that he had no doubt about the future prosperity of our trade as a whole. The general curve was "upward, gentle and healthy." He thought that a common mistake in judging the prospects of national trade was to compare unrelated factors. People deplored the recent regular excess of imports over exports, but one explanation of this excess was the expenditure of more than £600,000,000 on housing since the Armistice. Much of that sum had been sent abroad to pay for imported food and other requireinents for personal use. Not an atom of that imported food and other goods now repre- sented by the finished houses had been, or could be, eiported. We have paid for imports which could not be produced here. This money had increased the value of the nation's industrial plant because .a workman's home was a necessary part of his productive equipment. He believed that as the abnormal conditions passed, the excess - of imports over exports would become less marked. We had really been investing part of our foreign trade balance in houses at home instead of leaving it overseas for investment there.
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