Transformation in Trade

The Board of Trade announced last week that 1954 was the best trading year in British history. Its figures gave eloquent proof of the quiet but massive transformation that is taking place in the British economy.

Where Lancashire textiles and Welsh coal once led the list of exports, Britain's new staples are metals and engineering products (more than 50% of all British exports last year), chemicals ($560 million worth), and such technical specialties as radioactive isotopes (Britain is by far the world's largest isotope supplier, shipping 7,000 consignments a year to some 46 different countries). British car exports, the Board of Trade reported, "greatly exceed the combined exports of all European countries and are almost double those of the U.S."

The British still buy more in the world market than they sell. But the perennial trade deficit, which haunted the Labor government and forced the 1949 devaluation of the pound, has been transformed into a surplus with the help of such "invisible exports" as Lloyd's of London insurance policies and earnings from foreign tourists. Britain has also benefited from the worldwide change in the terms of trade: since the end of the Korean war, the prices of food and raw materials (which Britain must buy abroad) on the whole have tended to fall, while the price of manufactures (which Britain has for sale) has risen correspondingly. But Britain also owes much to its Tory government, which accepted most of the welfare measures inherited from the Socialists, while reducing their freedom-clogging restrictions on business initiative. The payoff was last week's Board of Trade report: Britain's exports in 1954 hit an alltime high of $7.5 billion.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.