I30 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



markets, a glance at her foreign trade shows that many of her exports 

 are not directly competitive with those of Britain : as already mentioned, 

 only 37-44 per cent, of her exports come into the finished goods class, and 

 among these comes refined petrol as well as the typical American industries 

 providing the ' amenities ' of life — motor-cars and accessories, films and 

 cinematograph goods, electrical appliances, radio apparatus, typewriters, 

 cash registers, office appliances, sewing machines, domestic refrigerators, 

 gramophones, new types of agricultural and road-making machinery, 

 oil-well plant, and so on. Motor-cars, gramophones and radio sets may 

 mean, however, less Irish linen, less Sheffield cutlery and less English 

 china and glass. Japan, which has proved so successful a competitor in 

 the Far Eastern textile markets, is a country which shows 47-49 per 

 cent, of her exports as finished goods, and of this 34 per cent, consists of 

 cotton and silk textiles and allied products. It must be recognised that 

 an able and industrious population, propinquity to the large Eastern 

 markets, and an excellent geographical position between Asia and the 

 American market are bound to make her a permanently serious competitor 

 in the textile market, to which she has devoted her main efforts. Germany, 

 which resembled Britain to a much greater degree in having 70-75 per 

 cent, of her exports finished goods, finds markets for over 70 per cent, 

 of her exports in Europe itself. Redistribution of markets has always 

 been a normal incident in foreign trade history, and Britain's problem 

 is to work her way through to a new equilibrium in foreign sales, and also 

 to a new distribution of industries, both in the home and overseas markets. 



