SECTION F.— ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 



BRITAIN'S ACCESS TO OVERSEAS 

 MARKETS 



ADDRESS BY 



PROF. R. B. FORRESTER, 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



There have been within the last few years a number of reports of special 

 British Economic Missions ^ sent to various dominions and foreign 

 countries to inquire into the difficulties which are being met in marketing 

 British products overseas ; in addition, there have been Government 

 Committees ^ specially devoting their attention to this subject. Their 

 efforts are an indication of the increasing anxiety with which the British 

 export position is being regarded, and it is proposed to consider some 

 aspects of their inquiries in the light of the events of the years after 1920. 

 Statistical surveys have indicated that Britain had failed to recover in the 

 post-war years a position comparable to that which she occupied in 1913 

 in the export trades ; this lack of recuperative power was not merely 

 absolute, as shown in the decreased quantity of her sales, which in the 

 favourable years 1925-29 was estimated to be 10 per cent, below her 

 level in the years before 1914, but it was relatively unfavourable in so far 

 as world trade and the trade of some of our leading rivals was increasing 

 at a more rapid pace and had easily surpassed its pre-war quantities. 



The reasons advanced to explain this generally admitted slowing down 

 of overseas sales have varied with the passing of years but have fallen 

 into two main groups : the first may be said to place emphasis upon the 

 natural course of world development in production combined with the 

 long series of casual misfortunes to which British trade has been specially 

 subject ; the other tends rather to urge that there is some special retarding 

 cause operating in the case of British sales which is not present in the 

 case of other countries, at least to the same extent. It finds this under- 

 lying cause in non-adjustable costs and in the suggested rigidity in the 

 British income and price structure which has put it out of gear with the 

 economic levels of price and remuneration in other countries. 



^ Among these reports may be mentioned the following : 



Report of the British Economic Mission to the Far East. 1931 . 



Report of the British Economic Mission to Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. 



1930. 

 Report of the Cotton Mission to the Far East. 1931. 

 Interim Report of the Committee on Education for Salesmanship : British 



Overseas Marketing. 1929. 

 Final Report of the Committee on Industry and Trade. 1929. 



