A British View of Postwar Trade

The first tentative title suggested for this paper was "The Importance of Restoring World Trade from Britain's Standpoint." There are, of course, no differences in kind between the interest of Britain and the United States or any other country in this respect. Differences in degree of importance attaching to international trade in affecting the level of employment and the productivity of the factors of production, the variables which determine the size of the national income, do of course exist as between countries. While it may not be true to say that "trade, to others a thing apart, is England's whole existence," yet England is high in the list of countries whose welfare is bound up with prosperous, free-flowing, and expanding world trade. Nevertheless it would be impolitic to lay undue emphasis on these differences of degree, for just as the problem of world peace is indivisible, so the community of interest in expanding world trade is indivisible. The recognition of this indivisibility is the first essential step in both cases to the development of that enlightened national self-interest which is the only possible basis of sound and secure world conditions.