31 JANUARY 1947, Page 15

COAL AND EXPORTS

SIR,—In your issue cf .January 24th, under the heading A Year's Trade, is the comment, " It is hard to explain how an increase of about 45 aer cent. ever the pre-war labour force of the expert industries has failed to produce an appreciable increase over the pre-war volume of exports." I wou:d suggest that the following point should be considered when drawing conclusions from the published statistics. The employment figures relate only to manufacturing industries and thus exclude coal miners, while the volume of exports includes all products. As we exported a considerable- tonnage of coal in pre-war years and export' hardly any now, the direct comparison of numbers employed and volume-