BRITISH TRADE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1241, 26 May 1864, Page 2

BRITISH TRADE.

The old doctrine, that "Nature abhors a vacuum,"; long banished as it has been from the realms of appears to have taken refuge in British Trade. It seems scarcely possible for any conceivable circumstances to prevent the -steady grriwth of the system which has driven-so many roots so deep into the fertile soil of British industry.; Over and over again it has been gloomily foretold that this soil must soon be exhausted; at oiie time -the tree was said to' depend oii'one tap root, then on another; and we can remember when men stood; aghast at a scale of production and commerce a* quarter of that which now is, and declared that England must inevitably collapse under such monstrous over production, if only because: a. surfeited human race would cry "Enough," and refuse to be crushed under the mountain of our : manufactures. All these auguries now lie one oil the top of the other, overlaid, absolete, out of mind. It takes spine memory and a little malice to recall that they were ever uttered. llow stands the fact? It is that England, as a whole, scarcely shows a trace of calamity endured now for two years, and stiil unabated, the mere imagination of which before that brief period was appalling, overwhelming, supreme. Here it stands before us, on the first page of the great annual review of our trade, in one simple figure which four years ago would have shaken this Island as an earthquake, blanched a million cheeks, and made thousands of rich and powerful men start to their feet in horror and dismay.. In the five strokes forming the quantity 57,090, we read the total number of hundredweight of cotton extracted by force or stealth from the ports of the Southern States in the year 1863. That multitudes of several thousands should have a hearty meal from a few small loaves*and fishes is. not more incredible to the common understanding than that our. annual cotton import should sink to that trifle in two years, and that we should, on the whole, be going on as usual, and peoplein general not much the worse, —in some respects even better. This miserable pittance is all we have had from that quarter, instead of 7,316,969 so late as in the year 1861, and much larger amounts in previous years. How have we got the straw for our tale of bricks ? Egypt has made a very great push, and so have other,countries, even India, so* slow to move ;' and, putting all together, we have managed to ; get very, nearly six million hundredweight against eleven and a quarter. This is more than half ; and half a loaf, they say, is, better than no bread. All the world is helping to fill the void. In this return " other countries," that is those besides our chief purveyors, have increased their supply from less than a hundred thousand hundredweight to more than a-million—i.e., more than tenfold. - \ ; .

But the vacuum has been filled in other ways besides by the zeal of other cottoiigrowers. : Of course we have had; to pay for the half as niuch, and even more, than for the whole. That we expected. But then we have been able to obtain from our customers considerably more than twice as much for our cotton manufactures. Cotton yarn is the lowest stage of manufacture, and the one in which our coal and our machinery most tell. We have sent abroad during the past year very considerably less than half as much as we did in 1861—not threesevenths ; but. whereas in that year we received on this head nine millions and ajquarter sterling, we received last year more than eight millions—no such great difference. When we come to such cotton manufactures as piece goods of all kinds, plain, printed, or coloured, then it appears we managed to export two-thirds of what we did in 1861, and received nearly a million and a half more; that is, £37,541,485 in 156.3, against £36,124,685 in 1861. In some minor heads of cotton manufacture the famine does not seem to have affected our exports. Thus, of lace and patent net we have sent out of the kingdom £448,568 worth last year, against £287,398 in 1861. We exported almost exactly the sattie number of cotton stockings in the two years, that is, a pair apiece for more than eight million people, more than twice as many counterpanes in the last of the two years we have compared, and, if a rather less quantity of sewing threiad, a good deal more in value—that is, £741,582, against £574,823. As for the general list, and even putting out of the question the figures evidently inflamed by the war, of. course there are ups and downs in the exports, arising from the course of speculation, from harvests, from the value of materials, and other causes; but, on the whole, the year 1863 has b&en a good export year. No doubt that is partly because our demand for cotton in new cotton-fields has raised in those quarters a demand for our manufactures, and raised the price accordingly. The export of earthenware a,nd porcelain was in value £1,334,275 last year, against £1,070,530 in 1861. We exported much niore furniture, more glass Of all kinds, more plate, about a million pounds worth more haberdashery and millinery,, four hundred thousand pounds worth more hardware and cutlery, under the old sense Of these designations, and just a hundred thousand more hats. Thpre has been so great a panic about our parting with our best horses that we must not wish for a large increase in that item, nor is there one. We exported 5,235 horses : last -.year, that is about onethirtieth the number "of "strong and healthy human beings we sent-Out iri the same period. It was a thousand more than the year before, which showed a rather-greater increase in , 1861. As the horses we exported last year were of little more than the average value of £51, and as it is confidently stated that many were very valuable, it follow sthD,l the majority were not, and that England' has no great reason to lament that they have" passed into the hands of foreigners.

Passing over, leather, which of course stood well in the last, year, we come to linen manufactures. Last year we exported nearly a million pounds worth more linen yarn than .in 1861 ; near a million and a half worth more of linen piece goods of all kinds ; twice as njijch .value of linen thread ; urnd four times as much hosiery. In steam engines, pig and bar iron in allforms, railroad iron, wine and castings, the year showed a, great increase, as was to be expected. Kunning down the list rapidly we are arrested by the head of hoops, sheets, and boiler plates. Of these'we exported £1,682,685 worth last year, almost exactly twice as much as in 1861. We then pass on. to an increase in iron of all sorts, and in wrought steel. We exported nearly three times as much unwrought, and nearly twice as much wrought copper. In brq,33 and tin, unwrought or in plates, there is much the same story. We aware that our' readers can only tolerate a certain amount pf figures at once,and that even the most cheerful and reassuring comparisons become odious by accumulation. But we should-be thought disingenuous if we did not observe that, we exported £550,519 worth of paper and pasteboard of all kinds last year, against £.361,014 in 1861, —though how much of this was our own making this is not the occasion to explain. Of course our export of telegraphic wire increases. We exported about a million and a half worth more of woollen and worsted yarn last year than in 1801 ; a million pounds wortli more cloth of all kinds, and a corresponding Increase in blankets and baizes, carpets and: druggets, shawls, rug 3, wrappers, and woollen stuffs of every kind.. Under all heads of' woollen fabrics the increase itself is many millions; The total declared value of the three years 1861, 1862, 1863, is in round numbers £125,000,000,£128,000,000, £146,000.000 ; so rapidly liave we recovered'from, the shock that was to wreck this Isle and lay. it at the mercy of the world. We cei'tainly have been at the mercy of the world, for we have laid ourselves at its mercy, and may now say that we have no need to reproach ourselves for doing so.—Times, Feb. 24.. •. . . ;; . ■; .;