Financehome In any case and in the last resort it is the people in the enterprise that make it tick. EXPORT AFTERTHOUGHTS It is doubtful whether any aspect of Britain's commercial life attracts so much cliche to itself as her export trade. Exhortations to do more of it fall with monotonous regularity from the anxious lips of spokesmen of successive governments of whatever political colour. Moreover, and especially since the end of the war, 'economic nationalism' as a dominant force in world affairs, as well as the genuine, if overdue, attempts by Western Europe to organize her trade and politics so that a primarily European war can never again happen, have meant that cliches, as far as Britain is concerned, have a new force and a new urgency. 'Export or die' the apotheosis of cliche brings a wry smile to the faces of many British manufacturers, and the postwar history of Britain's export trade is littered with tombstones marking the Management of What? 125 death of the brave, but often ineffectual, efforts to inject a new approach into this most baffling of subjects. But 'export or die' is the heart of the matter so far as Britain's longterm future is concerned a nation committed, irrevocably and permanently, to a way of life for its people which is today assumed to be what the people themselves regard as their due. As a tailpiece to a chapter which has analysed in some detail the chief components of the managerial process finance, production, and marketing-it seems appropriate to examine in a separate section some of the problems of exporting so far as they affect business management in Britain. The buildup and maintenance of a successful export trade involves the clearest possible understanding and utilization of those 'means' which have been discussed in the body of this chapter. Financing for export has to be seen very often as a longterm investment and something of a gamble. Export production has to be balanced against the development of the sometimes more urgent claims of domestic demand. Export marketing is more often than not a question, at the start of an export foray at any rate, of will rather than technique of will, and indeed of luck. These are characteristics of a form of trading which is at once infinitely tedious, infinitely exciting, and infinitely important. And it must also be remembered that Britain's overseas loyalties, more than those of all other European countries, including those behind the Iron Curtain, are inevitably split. She is not only the heart of a Commonwealth and Empire, but is also, geographically and historically, a part of Europe as well as a blood relation of North America. Critics of her anxieties over relationships with the heartening movement towards European Free Trade must remember these somewhat tormenting claims. A united Western European 'bloc', united that is to say in politics and trade, is one thing, but a united, mutually trading Commonwealth and Empire, working harmoniously with the United States, is another. Household