§ It is usual and appropriate on this occasion, by way of preface to that part, of the financial statement which deals with the national accounts, to make one or two observations of a more general character with regard to the trade and economic conditions of the country. Sir, as regards the calendar year—we are dealing with the calendar, and not the financial year—1907, the foreign trade of the United Kingdom, that branch of our trade which admits of statistical measurement and therefore most readily challenges comparison, was greater than in any previous year, in volume as well as in value, in imports as well as in exports. In my Budget speech of two years ago I pointed out that the exports of British and Irish produce in the preceding year, as compared with those of 1900, which we always take for this purpose as the standard year, and measured by the prices of 1900, showed an increase of 23 per cent. This growth has continued in the two succeeding years at an augmented pace, so that in 1907 the exports of British and Irish produce, compared with, and valued at the prices of, 1900, showed an increase of more than 43 per cent.
§ Imports during the same period showed expansion, but of less extent absolutely and to a much smaller degree relatively. The increase of imports, tested again by the 1900 standard of values, rose from £523,000,000 to £600,000,000, or rather less than 15 per cent. in the course of these years. But, Sir, this expansion in our foreign trade is part of an international movement, and the signs that the tide had begun to ebb were everywhere visible before the end of 1907. The trade returns for the first quarter of 447 1908 showed that both imports and exports had in that period fallen below the high water mark of 1907; but what has been lost in this way is only a part of the gain of a year ago, because the reduced figures of 1908 are still well in advance of those of 1906, which was, in its turn a record year. If we look for a moment at the domestic side of the matter, employment improved in the first half of 1907, compared with 1906, while the decline which in the latter half we find was more marked than in the first quarter of 1908. On the other hand, the Board of Trade statistics of the rates of wages relating to interests in which 9,000,000 of people are employed showed a higher level of wages at the end of 1907 than at any other time in the period since 1903, over which these records extend. The upward movement lasted continuously from the second half of 1905, and was still in progress at the end of the first quarter of 1908. British trade, then, I think one may say, has suffered no violent shock; and, while it is dangerous to prophesy, so far as present indications go they do not point to more than a slackening in the rate of expansion that has been proceeding with extreme and unparalleled rapidity.