DEPRECIATION OF CREDIT BY IMPORTS 5 



own, e.g., coal, or by our foreign investments. A Euro- 

 pean war like the present considerably reduces our 

 manufacturing for export,* but though we can cut off 

 automatically the imports required f or that purpose we 

 cannot cut off the food nor the increasing volume of 

 materials that are wanted for war purposes. In war, 

 the balance of trade must go against the nation : ex- 

 ports cease to pay for imports, which have to be bought 

 upon credit, and that credit becomes the more strained 

 the bigger the import bill. In the case of the United 

 Kingdom we have to continue depreciating the imperial 

 credit by buying from outside the Empire 167 million 

 pounds worth of food, the whole or any part of which, 

 if produced at home, would not lower the national 

 credit at all during the war, because it would be paid 

 for in paper at home where the credit of that paper is 

 unassailable. It may be more profitable in peace time 

 to buy food and pay in manufactures, but when war 

 comes and we can neither make nor sell the finished 

 articles though the food bill has still to be incurred, 

 then so large an annual debit as 167 millions becomes 



* The falling off in exports during war may be estimated from the 

 following figures. (Accounts relating to Trade and Navigation, Dec., 

 I9I5-) 



