Shorter Notices Britain and Her Export Trade. Edited by Mark
Abrams. (Pilot Press. 15s.) IF the need for more exports has yet to capture the public imagin- ation, the reason may be that one of the canons of publicity has been ignored. It is a principle well known to those who have to cope with the attentions of the Press that there are two ways to suppress inquisitiveness—to say nothing and to say everything. Between the two lies news. Between the reiterated over-simplifications of the Board of Trade's posters and the exhaustive analysis of the economists lies the export problem in the form in which it can be understood by any reasonably intelligent citizen Britain and Her Export Trade represents the most successful attempt so far to present the problem in that form. Each one of its dozen contributors is an economist and each one possesses the power of exposition. Mr. Hoeffding's chapter on the Bretton Woods Agreements is a completely admirable piece of lucid description. Mr. Walter Hill's salutary introduction in which he puts the British export problem into its proper place as one manifestation of the question of the international division of labour also stands out in a most distinguished symposium. To those for whom international trade is primarily a political question it will appear that this book takes sides. It favours a vast expansion of world trade, and it maintains that the American proposals for its finance and organisation can promote such an expansion. But at the same time it admits that Republican policy may upset those proposals—as may the British critics who persist in representing Americans as a crew of ignorant freebooters whose purpose is to impoverish their neighbours. In short, the side which this book takes is the side which opposes prejudice and unreason. It deserves a wider circulation than it is likely to get at a price of fifteen shillings.
Previous page
