working machinery for use in Government-owned foundries and manufacturing plants. These machinery exports aggregated $35,163,000, as compared with $6,954,000 in 1937 and with $15,383,000 in 1936. Industrial furnaces, air compressors, aluminum ingots and plates, and aircraft were other principal items exported in increased amounts to the Soviet Union in 1938. While exports of the above-mentioned products increased greatly and while the trade in 1938 consisted of finished manufactures and semimanufactures to a greater extent even than in 1937, there were decided decreases in exports of other commodities. These shifts reflect the purposive character of Soviet purchases in foreign countries. Oil-well and refinery machinery, radio apparatus, car wheels and axles, iron and steel plates, and copper, which were relatively large in 1937, were only fractionally as large in 1938. Exports of crude materials, mainly cotton, have been negligible since 1935, for the Soviet industry has been relying on its own cotton crops in recent years. As in previous years, imports from the U. S. S. R. in 1938 consisted principally of crude materials and semimanufactures. The principal items of import were undressed furs, manganese ore, and anthracite, in the order given. Imports of undressed furs in 1938 were about as large in value as in 1937, those of anthracite were down, principally in quantity, and those of manganese were reduced in both quantity and value. These three items comprised nearly two-thirds of the total import trade. In the declines in a number of the minor items which constituted the remaining one-third of the 1938 import total, a modification of Soviet foreign-trade policy is reflected. The drop in imports as compared with 1937 was due not alone to the recession in United States business activity, but also to a reduction in exports of Soviet products which were needed for Soviet consumption or for war reserves. UNITED KINGDOM The United Kingdom continued in 1938 as the leading market for United States exports. Although maximum and minimum values of shipments to the United Kingdom vary in times of prosperity and depression, the British share of total exports from the United States has ranged from 16 to 19 percent during the period since 1926. Normally the United Kingdom stands third, next to Canada and Japan, as a source of imports into the United States and furnishes from 6 to 8 percent of our total imports. The outstanding feature of the exchange of goods between the United States and the United Kingdom is its distribution over a very wide list of commodities, with exceptional emphasis on only a few individual commodities, of which cotton and tobacco are usually the most important. These two commodities represented 29 percent of the total United States exports to the United Kingdom in 1938, but of the remaining seven-tenths, as listed in table 35 only 7 of the more than 75 specifically mentioned items of export to the United Kingdom amounted to more than 2 percent of the total. These seven were corn, wheat, lard, lumber, gasoline, lubricating oil, and metalworking machinery. In 1938 the value of United States exports to the United Kingdom was lower than in the preceding year by 3 percent. The large British demand for United States metals and metalworking machinery in 1937 tapered off somewhat in 1938, and exports of cotton were sharply reduced in the latter part of the year. Food products, especially wheat, corn, oranges, apples, pears, lard, and meats, and numerous other commodities, including tobacco and motor fuel, were exported in greatly increased quantities to the United Kingdom in 1938 as compared with 1937. Taken as a group, foodstuffs comprised 28 percent of the total exports in 1938, a much larger proportion than in the immediately preceding years. 1901–1905 | 1906–1910 | 1911–1915 | 1916–1920 | 1921–1925 1926–1930 ¦ 1931–1935 1936-1940 Figure 25.-Trade of the United States With the United Kingdom. D.D 9157 In United States imports from the United Kingdom one itemwhisky—among the items specifically mentioned in table 35 represented as much as 27 percent of the total and six items represented as much as 2 to 6 percent. These six included linen fabrics, woolens, rayon filaments, tin, creosote oil, and works of art. A relatively large number of the import items fall in the category of manufactured goods; textiles and textile manufactures, as a group, represented over one-fifth of the import total in 1938, and other finished and semifinished manufactures were nearly two-fifths of the total. After rising in 1937 to the highest figure since 1930, United States imports from the United Kingdom decreased in value in 1938. The United States purchased much smaller amounts of textile manufac tures, furs, leather, vegetable oils, tea, diamonds, tin, platinum, works of art, and various other products from the United Kingdom, with the result that the value of total imports for consumption was nearly 41 percent smaller in 1938 than in 1937. Rayon filament, anthracite, and creosote oil were numbered among the few imports that showed an increase in 1938, while imports of whisky were nearly as large in 1938 as in 1937. Table 35.-Principal Commodities in Trade of the United States With the United Kingdom 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 35.-Principal Commodities in Trade of the United States With the United 1 Less than 500. ? Not shown separately. Figures for 1929 and 1932 have not been adjusted for minor transfers in the classifications of later years. 4 Household refrigerators only. 8,834 870 1, 324 870 30, 196 3,876 7,598 4,094 54, 955 16, 284 34, 575 23, 057 |