TRADE RETURNS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 76, 1 April 1910, Page 3

TRADE RETURNS.

SOME INTERESTING FIGURES. The tiadc returns of the United Kingdom for the month " of January, compiled by the Board of Trade, London, with special reference to the trade in New Zealand, show a continuation of the expansion of trade which was a marked feature of the returns for tho later months of 1909. The imports, of food products showed a substantial increase, and the values of law materials imported were generally larger than in January, 1909, with the exception of cotton and hemp. The high price reached by raw cotton at the end of last year has had the effect of reducing considerably the amount imported into the United Kingdom. Important increases are shown in most leading descriptions of articles of United Kingdom produce and manufacture exported. In many cases the figures for January, 15)10, exceed not only those for the first month of 1909, but 'also those for January, 1908. In spite of the high price of the raw material, the cotton piece-good* exported were more in quantity by about 20 per cent, than thosa exported a year earlier, when the effect of the Lancashire cotton trade dispute of the autumn of 1908 were still visible in the foreign trade returns. The delivery of a large foreign war vessel inflated the figures of exports of ships in January, but even ii this exceptional item is ignored, the substantial increase of over £4,000,000 in the first month of the year in other items is a good augury for the rest of the year. It is worth noting that the exports (United Kingdom produce) in January were only about a quarter of a million sterling behind those of January, 1907, which yielded the highest figure for January on T»cord. As usual, Ihe trade accounts for January include tables showing the total trade of the year 1909 with each foreign country and each part of the British Empire. From these tables it appears that the imports into the United Kingdom in 1909 show an increase of £14,632,000 in goods consigned from foreign countries, while the increase of consignments from British possessions amounted to £17.155,000. Of the exports of produce of the United Kingdom, the increase to foreign countries in 1909, as compared with 1908, was £781,000, whilo the increase to Britixh possessions was £494,000. The increases were recorded mainly in the second half of the year, and in the last six months of 1909 the increase of exports to UritMi possessions over the figures for the corresponding months of 1908 amounted to £6,664,000, as compared with an increase of £7,670,000 to foreign countries. As the total exports to foreign countries are, roughly, double those to British possessions, and the imports from foreign countries moro than three times those from British possession!), these comparisons of the growth of -the two sections of the trade show the position of tho inter- Imperial trade to have been stronger in 1909 ' than in 1903. In 1909 the imports into the United Kingdom from New Zealand nmonnted in value to £17.731,000, a» compaitd with £14,664.000 iv 1903, the increase being thin 21 per rent. Exports of United Kingdom produce to New Zenland, however, showed n de^renoe from £8.767,000 in 1908 to £7,352,000 in 1909, or 16 per cent. The detailed particulars of the decrease arc not shown in the tables now i^iied, but will form an interesting subject of stud} when the detailed »nnunl f-tatement i«* published.