I think the House will be grateful to the hon. Member for the Drake Division of Plymouth (Sir A. S. Benn) for tabling this Motion, because it gives us an opportunity of discussing a very important problem. I do not think anyone in any quarter of the House can be satisfied with the present position of our export trade. I am not going to weary the House with a number of figures, but I should like to read the figures given in answer to a question not long ago, setting out the position of our export trade. If you want to get an accurate appreciation it is enormously important to get your figures down to a common basis of pre-War values. I dare say there are many who have not seen the answer that was given. The information was given in a written answer. The question put was as to the value of our import and export trade to-day and in recent years compared with 1913, taking 1913 values as 100. I will give first the figures as to imports of raw materials and articles mainly unmanufactured, because that is an indication of what the total manufacturing output of our country is, and gives us some indication of the home market as well as the overseas market. While I agree to a certain extent with what was said by the last speaker as to the importance of the home market, I do not agree that a mere redistribution of wealth will increase the general purchasing power of the community. Taking the imports of raw materials, the figures show, as compared with 1913 values at 100, that in 1922 the percentage was 79.4, in 1923, 79.1, and from January to March, 1924, 73.9. Taking exports of articles wholly or mainly manufactured, the figures show that in 1922 the percentage was 66.5 and in 1923, 73.3, and for the first quarter of 1924—when there was in one month a great expansion in exports, though, unfortunately, it has been going down more recently, the percentage was 74.2, as against 100 in 1913.

To-day we have a population of something like 1,750,000 more than we had at the last census period. The efficiency of production is enormously increased, and, consequently, we have to do a bigger business in order to keep the same number of men employed, and yet we are doing less than three-quarters of our volume of overseas pre-War trade. Such a situation must fill us with a great measure of disquiet, and is in itself a sufficient reason for the moving of this Resolution to-night.