GREAT BRITAIN: Cost of High Living

Britain in 1955 ran up a trading deficit of $2,419,200,000, the Board of Trade glumly reported last week. Though exports from Britain’s booming industries rose by more than 8%, imports soared by 15%. Britain’s dollar-and-gold reserves were drained by nearly one quarter to just over $2 billion. One result: West Germany, for the first time in its short history, edged ahead of the sterling bloc as the biggest foreign holder of dollar-and-gold reserves.