Abstract
A BROADSHEET, "Facts about International Trade" (No. 219), issued by P E P (Political and Economic Planning), describes developments since the P E P report on international trade was published in 1937, and is intended to form the starting point for a later examination of some of the main problems of postwar international trade. The main conclusions emerging from the report itself and the present broadsheet are, first, that exports are essentially a means of obtaining necessary or desirable imports: neither Britain, the United States nor any other country should export primarily to create home employment; export and import policy should be deliberately related to a nation's balance of payments and to its long-term foreign lending and borrowing. Secondly, trade restrictions and bilateralism were a symptom more than a cause of the decline in world trade after 1929; post-war policy should aim at a continuing expansion of effective world demand, making full use of the world's man-power and resources. Multilateral trade, while creating the necessary conditions for obtaining the greatest possible advantages from international trade, also heightens the economic interdependence of nations. A restoration of multilateral trade requires: (a) an efficient international monetary exchange clearing system in which all nations have complete confidence; (b) the maintenance of full employment within national economies; (c) the maximum attainable measure of political security. These three requirements are essential to a universal 'economy of peace'. Failing the establishment of a universal multilateral system of trade, the 'low-tariff club' represents a means by which nations most dependent on international trade can secure the benefits of multilateralism on a limited scale. 'Lend-lease' is essentially a war-time method of international exchange and is unlikely to continue after the immediate post-war period of securities; but world prosperity, like peace, is indivisible. Finally, Great Britain's major problem in foreign trade after the War is to increase her visible exports very considerably, to repair the inroads of war here and in overseas investment income, and to maintain the volume of imports vital to her standard of living.
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International Trade. Nature 154, 298 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/154298c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/154298c0