Wanted: Customers

To the long list of Britain's shortages—food, steel, coal, dollars, labor—exporters last week added another: customers. Britain's life-giving export drive, slowed down by rearmament, is beginning to falter in the face of Japanese and German competition. Commonwealth countries, e.g., Australia, anxious to balance their budgets, have slashed imports, most of which came from Britain. Higher British prices are meeting increasing sales resistance in the U.S. dollar market. Fretted one ruddy-faced British exporter of machinery: "I'll be the happiest man in the world if our exports decline only 20% this year from last."

To hold down British prices, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rab Butler begged British trade unions not to press for wage increases. But 6,000,000 workers have already asked for more. All the while, the painfully familiar gap between Britain's earnings and spendings grows steadily wider. Britain's gold and dollar reserves, down to a precarious $1.7 billion, plunged towards the bare minimum (about $1.3 billion) needed to finance sterling-area trade. Last week, as the bad news spread, British government securities dropped to an all-time low. There were worse times ahead for the British.