True, the value of the imports, amounting altogether to 1803 million lire, 

 was less by 11,5 million lire than that of the corresponding period of 

 1911, but this falling off is solely due to the diminished importation of 

 agricultural produce consequent upon the favourable harvest of the year 

 1911. On the other hand, the exports during the first half year of 1912 

 reached the value of 1140 million lire, that is to say, there is an increase 

 of 61 million lire. In the face of these statistics there is no room for 

 doubt that, when once peace has been declared (which it is to be hoped 

 will be soon), the country will be on the road towards a successful future, 

 especially in view of the fact that experience shows that, after a war, trade 

 and traffic always experience a revival. According to the published statistics 

 the suspensions of payment in Italy have increased by more than 50 p. c, 

 which must he regarded as an attendant phenomenon of the war. This 

 crisis naturally operates in favour of substantial firms, because it frees 

 the commercial community from the competition of incompetent and 

 financially weak elements. 



Since our last Report, commerce and industry in the United Kingdom 

 have continued to be affected by labour unrest and by disturbances which 

 have only been brought to a close within the past few weeks. Scarcely 

 had the gigantic coal strike with its attendant evils been settled, and some 

 degree of order restored out of the confusion brought about by the sus- 

 pension of work, scarcely had the all but universal financial losses been 

 overcome, although by no means forgotten, when suddenly and almost 

 without any warning a great strike broke out at the London Docks. As 

 in many other instances, so here, — at any rate broadly speaking, — the 

 question at issue was not so much one of real and well-founded discontent 

 among the labourers, as rather, in the first place, a trial of strength between 

 the management of the docks on one side and an ultra-revolutionary group 

 of strike-leaders on the other. The demands of these latter shouters were 

 aimed at nothing less than the supreme control of the docks; in the future 

 the strike-leaders alone were to determine who should be allowed to work 

 in the docks; theirs alone was to be the right to dictate to the employers 

 what wages should be paid, and many other things of similar character 

 and purport. Quite naturally these impertinent demands were roundly 

 rejected by the docks' management, with the result that the infuriated 

 fc leaders left no stone unturned to enforce their dictatorial behests by 

 violent means. In their daily agitatory orations they used towards the 

 work-givers a language which mocks all attempt at description, and which 

 did much to bring public opinion in a solid phalanx on the side of the 

 management. Notwithstanding this, the labour-leaders, by means of empty 

 promises, succeeded in inducing the men to hold out, and for nearly two 

 months close upon 100000 workmen were idle and, together with their 

 families, condemned to a life of ever-worsening starvation, while the well- 

 paid and well-fed leaders ("misleaders" would be a more appropriate 



