ABSTRACT
The figures of current payments on international account between Great Britain and the rest of the world thus roughly balanced, leaving no surplus available for fresh overseas investment, apart from the relending of such capital, as was being repaid by overseas borrowers. Moreover, as the accompanying table shows, many of the imports classified as manufactured goods are in fact essential materials for the use of the finishing industries in Great Britain. Retained imports in 1932 were not very different in total from those of 1933, and the level of total retained imports in these two years can fairly be treated as an irreducible minimum at the 1933 level of industrial activity, apart from the possibility of a large expansion in the home production of foodstuffs, to which people will come later. In 1933 the index of industrial production in Great Britain stood at 96 per cent of the level of 1930, and 88 per cent of the level of 1929.
