246

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

GREAT BRITAIN, 1880-1914.

A

i
=a _.xcess of imports over exports
meme Income from abroad
== Shipping earnings
= TF xport of capital

mde
Ic

J

enter into the total of the “invisible” factors of Great Britain's
trade: the inflowing income from investments, the shipping
earnings, and the export of capital. It will be seen that the first
of these, income from investments, shows a fairly steady growth
from year to year, such as is to be expected. The second, shipping
earnings, also shows a continuing growth, tho not one so steady.
The two account for the balance of payments due fo the country,
and so account for the excess of imports (I disregard minor items).
The new loans — the capital exports — vary to an extraordinary
degree; and no variation is so striking as the upward burst in
1904-1914. The phenomenon, it may be noted, was not peculiar
to Great Britain. A similar one appeared in Germany and France,
indeed in all the capital-lending countries of Europe. With it went
an equally striking expansion of the total volume of international
trade, an accentuation of international competition, a yeasty and
uneasy turmoil both in the lending and the borrowing countries —
the various forms of trade rivalry, fomented by nationalistic sentiment
 and by economic jealousies and fallacies, which contributed
so largely to the ensuing war. It was in Great Britain. then still