THE FREE TRADE COLONY. REVIEW OF ITS LAST YEAR'S TRADE.

Evening Post, Volume LIII, Issue 2, 4 January 1897, Page 5

THE FREE TRADE COLONY. REVIEW OF ITS LAST YEAR'S TRADE.

[PBESS ASSOCIATION.] Sydney, 2nd January. The Sydney Morning Herald, in its trade review for the past year, says that business shows a marked steady improvement. Although the drought affected the volume of exports, still there was no decline in pastoral, agricultural, dairying, and mining enterprise. Also, the number of unemployed was far less than in the previous year. Although the troubles resulting from the collapse of building societies and banks have not entirely passed away, conditions have gradually developed which bring much nearer the time when industry and business will be on its normal basis. The general industrial tone was far healthier than in any time during the present decade, and there are signs on every band of a return to a larger measure of general prosperity. The Daily Telegraph says that, notwithstanding the disastrous effects of the drought in the previous year, which it estimates lessened the colony's exports for 1896 to the extent of two or three millions, and necessitated the importation of foods to the value of upwards of a million, the year had been one of large progress and expansion. The outlook for 1897 is highly satisfactory.