Table 50.-Percentage Distribution and Changes in Trade With Africa, by Commercial Regions and by Countries

The statistics in tables 49 and 51 indicate that the merchandise trade of the United States with British South Africa is heavily unbalanced, as imports into the United States from South Africa are much smaller than our exports to that area. However, if the large amounts of gold produced in the Union of South Africa which proceed indirectly through intermediary countries to the United States are taken into account, payments between the two countries come much closer to an even balance than the data on merchandise trade would indicate.

The shipments of diamonds from the Union of South Africa further illustrate the same circumstances. Table 51 shows that imports of diamonds into the United States far exceed those of any other item, and, in fact, represented 53 percent of the total in 1938. Yet the figure in the table covers only part of the shipments, as the major part of the jewel stones from the Union and elsewhere were brought indirectly through Europe in 1938. The cutting of these stones in Europe is enough, statistically, to credit the diamonds to Belgium or the Netherlands and thereby to distort the balance of trade between countries of primary origin and ultimate destination. Prior to 1938 both uncut gems and industrial diamonds were also largely accredited to the European country of transshipment, but in the 1938 statistics these products were accredited largely to the country of origin. The change in the method of reporting imports of diamonds is entirely responsible for the increase shown in the value of total merchandise imported from British South Africa in 1938. If the value of diamonds had been similarly shown in imports for 1937 and other preceding years, the import totals in table 51 would have been much higher.

United States imports of most leading commodities from British South Africa other than diamonds decreased sharply in 1938. These include corn, which reached the unusual figure of 3,583,000 bushels in 1937 and dropped to 26,000 bushels in 1938; and lobsters, which had increased from 248,000 pounds in 1935 to 1,798,000 pounds in 1937, but decreased to 1,373,000 pounds in 1938. Imports of wool, hides, wattle bark and extract, and chrome ore were also substantially smaller in 1938 than in 1937.

The tremendous increase in the value of British South Africa's purchases of United States merchandise (from an average $26,000,000 in 1931-33 to an average $65,400,000 since the latter year) was the

1901-1905 1906-1910 1911-1915 1916-1920 1921-1925 1926-1930 1931-1935 1936-1940 D.D. 9170 Figure 37.—Trade of the United States With British South Africa (Not Reported Separately, 1901–02).

result of the increased price for gold, that country's chief product. The purchasing power of the mining industry, and thereby of a large share of the population, was immensely increased. In 1936 the Union of South Africa was the seventh most important customer of the United States; in 1937 and 1938 it was our eleventh largest market.

Of the total United States exports of $71,763,000 to British South Africa in 1938, $49,522,000, or slightly over two-thirds, consisted of metals and machinery, a part of which represented purchases by mining interests. The shipment of 52,250 household refrigerators and 61,322 passenger automobiles in two years, to a population of 2,000,000 whites, exemplifies their high purchasing power.

In 1938 British South Africa was the destination of 2.3 percent of the exports from the United States; and, from the opposite viewpoint, the United States furnished 14.6 percent of the Union's imports. The American percentage share of the Union's exports is not shown because of the factor of indirect shipments of gold and diamonds.

Table 51.-Principal Commodities in Trade of the United States With British South Africa

NOTE. Data for individual export items include only United States products. Import commodities are "general imports" in 1929 and 1932 and "imports for consumption" in 1937 and 1938.

Table 51.-Principal Commodities in Trade of the United States With British South Africa-Continued

1 Not shown separately.

1,000 lb
tons.

211 2,588

8,347

4,471 12, 918

28

450

495

1,226

1, 469

152

55

410

362

882

852

2 Figures for 1929 and 1932 have not been adjusted for minor transfers in classifications of later years. 3 Household refrigerators only.

Less than 500.

BRITISH WEST AFRICA

5 Gross weight.

United States imports from British West Africa (Nigeria, Gold Coast, Sierre Leone, and Gambia) regularly exceed in value our merchandise exports to those Colonies. In 1938, general imports amounted to $11,409,000 and exports to $5,369,000-both appreciably smaller figures, however, than in 1937. United States purchases of cocoa in British West Africa were greatly curtailed in 1938, principally because native farmers in the Gold Coast held back (as a result of disagreements over marketing arrangements) the major 1937 cocoa crop from marketing channels until the spring of 1938. In the preceding year the United States purchased an unusually large amount of cocoa as well as large quantities of other West African products, including palm oil, goat and kid skins, and manganese ore. Whereas British West Africa is usually the chief supplier of cocoa imported into the United States, one-fourth less cocoa was imported from that area in 1938 than from Brazil, which generally holds second place as a source of this important import.

Principal United States exports to British West Africa include automobiles, mineral oils, tobacco, and wheat flour, all of which increased in value in 1937 and declined in 1938. The rise in price during 1937 and the subsequent decline in 1938 were important factors in the change in the values of flour and tobacco. In terms of quantity, the exports of both flour and tobacco varied only moderately in 1937 as compared with 1936, but both showed decreases in quantity and value in 1938. The exports of box shooks, a trade that has

developed in recent years in connection with the retail distribution of mineral oils in West Africa, showed a smaller percentage decrease in 1938 than that shown by the other principal items.

M

GENERAL IMPORTS

|1901-1905 1906-1910 1911-1915 1916-1920 1921-1925 | 1926-1930 1931-1935 | 1936-1940|

DD.9171

Figure 38.-Trade of the United States With British West Africa (Not Reported Separately 1901-02). Table 52.-Principal Commodities in Trade of the United States With British West Africa

NOTE. Data for individual export items include only United States products. Import commodities are "general imports" in 1929 and 1932; “imports for consumption" in 1937 and 1938.

3 Not shown separately.

2 Figures for 1929 and 1932 have not been adjusted for minor transfers in classifications of later years.