ABSTRACT
THE successes, difficulties and unsolved problems encountered by our trade policy must be seen against the background of the post-war economic position of Europe if they are to be properly appreciated. Many German problems merely reflect analogous changes and preoccupations in Europe. Europe, for instance, was able to increase its production long before the Federal Republic. The absence of German exports until 1949, on the other hand, exacerbated the difficulties of Europe's export trade. The lack of German supplies increased the dollar gap-partly because imports of machinery, etc., from the United States were correspondingly increased, and partly because the German market was closed to a number of export goods. The partition of Europe into East and West and the inadequacy of the contacts between Western Europe and the world overseas are difficulties shared by the Federal Republic and should promote an understanding for Germany's problems. I t may, therefore, be useful to provide a cross-section through the post-war development of Europe. Sources exist in the shape of the O.E.E.C. reports published in Paris and those of the E.C.E. published in Geneva. For technical reasons the following description is based on the latter."
