Full text: Realities and problems

CAPITAL ISSUES. 
It may be of advantage to illustrate how the employment 
of new capital in industry in this country has tended to decline 
in recent vears. 
An examination of the figures contained in Table appended “ J 
shows that in the first ten months of 1930 the total amount of money 
vested in new issues in Great Britain, including investment in 
such things as Mortgages, Banks and so forth, was £110,188,644. 
In the corresponding ten months of the previous year it was 
nearly £135,000,000 and in 1928 it was over £188,000,000. 
But absolute amounts may themselves be misleading unless 
they are compared with the total amount of the national savings 
available for investment elsewhere. 
The striking feature of years of high domestic taxation is the 
result that a high proportion of the money available for investment 
is sent to overseas countries. 
There is, however, another way in which capital is exported 
from this country, and, in this case, it is definitely and entirely lost 
because it produces no interest and no return. 
When British manufacturers send goods abroad at less than 
their own cost price, they are exporting and permanently losing 
capital. It should be noted that this export of goods at less than 
cost price is undertaken and has been undertaken lately in many 
more cases than is usually supposed, partly in order that the 
machinery of the works may be kept running, and that the manu- 
facturers may keep in touch with the foreign markets in the hope 
that they may be able to sell there at a better price later on. and 
partly in order to avoid losing skilled men. 
In the cost to the manufacturer of any article, there is 
necessarily included money paid by him for his raw materials, 
the cost of inland transport which he pays, and the cost of wages. 
This represents capital expended. When the goods are exported 
below cost price, a proportion of this already expended capital is 
definitely lost because it is not recovered from the customer. This 
means that the foreign customer is presented gratis with that 
proportion of the capital used in the manufacture of the article. 
In other cases we are suffering from the same thing. Russia, 
for example, is exporting in this way, but the motive is different. 
On the basis of an entirely artificial standard it is exporting to 
attack other countries. 
It is inevitable that as confidence in the ability of British 
Industries to make profits and keep their works going decreases,
	        
Waiting...

Note to user

Dear user,

In response to current developments in the web technology used by the Goobi viewer, the software no longer supports your browser.

Please use one of the following browsers to display this page correctly.

Thank you.