Unseen trade
Sir: There is one intriguing aspect of the balance of trade figures which is never mentioned and which might, conceivably, make all the difference to the 'deficit' announced last month.
The figures are always produced as if this were one tight little island exporting its goods across the Channel in return for an unpalatable proportion of imports from abroad.
Is this really the case? Apart from the Invisibles' of banking and insurance which should certainly be brought into the monthly total, there is a vast amount of British trade carried on across the world which never crosses our frontiers at all, and is therefore not shown in the figures. We still have massive investments in India, in Australia, in Canada (of The 'Hudson's Bay Co), in South Africa, in New Zealand, in the United States, and recently among properties in Europe. I have no idea whether we Kill have interest in the Argentine Railways, but there is a Harrods in Buenos Aires. Cars are assembled in Australia. If they are sold in New Zealand, that is a perfectly valid item of British trade which doesn't appear in the figures. If South African gold is sold to France and Germany together with truckloads of diamonds, that doesn't get into the figures. If Mr Clore's building over the Grand Central station is let at vast rents to American corporations, or Indian tea is exported to Canada, or New Zealand lamb to Japan, or Minis assembled in Italy to the Italians, or oil from the North Sea to Rotterdam, none of this gets into the figures.
I have never seen this sum done, but I would be surprised if it didn't add up to many hundreds of millions of
pounds a month. Anthony Gibbs
Spurfold House, Peaslake, Surrey
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