ENCOURAGING STATE OF ENGLAND.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 145, 14 December 1844, Page 163

ENCOURAGING STATE OF ENGLAND.

[From the Sydney Herald, November 7.] The whole complexion of the news brought from England by the late arrivals, is cheering to every lover of his father-land. After a commercial depression of almost unexampled depth and duration, the affairs of the country had assumed an aspect of health and comfort, and assured prosperity, which had scarely been equalled since the termination of the war. And this revival is the more gratifying, that it is not the result of accident, nor the offspring of those adventurous schemes which in former years, flattered by the facilities pf credit and of an artificial currency, had raised the kingdom to a dizzy height of imaginary affluence and grandeur, only to precipitate it to a deeper and more disastrous fall. On the contrary, the present improvement is marked by all the symptoms of genuineness and stability. There is no elation, no excitement, no impetuosity. The very terms employed by the writers whose business it is to report commercial transactions, evince a moderation, a cautiousness, an anxiety to avoid every semblance of exaggeration, which stamp their favourable representations with the more instrinsic value. The prosperity they describe is the legitimate consequence of industry and enterprise, prudence and intelligence in the application of capital to the development of the multifarious resources of a great nation, aided by those recent measures of the legislature which | had restored commerce to a comparative degree of freedom. " Now," observes a judicious commentator on the position of affairs on the 20th of July last, " now that the beneficial working of the law passed relative to customs duties, &c, has become apparent, an impetus has been given to our commercial operations, the results of which it is quite impossible to estimate." Among the unequivocal tokens 'of general improvement was the fact that the revenue had increased in a ratio to which it had been a stranger for many years. The Excise of the year had increased by £420,073, and the Customs by " the somewhat startling sum " of £835,349 ; while the total income of the year had exceeded that of the year previous by nearly two millions and a fialf! Indeed, putting out of the calculation the adventitious sums received from China, the increase on the quarter ended in July was about £400,000, and on the year upwards of three millions ! " This," observes the journalist we have already quoted, "is certainly a flourishing return ; and when its principal sources of increase are considered, namely, the customs and excise, we must certainly congratulate Ministers and the country on the result."

Next to this splendid augmentation of revenue, the public sales in the metropolis and other large towns afforded^ the most satisfactory proofs of revival. The large purchases which had taken place in the third week of July, of colonial woods and indigo, showed that the market of British fabrics was animated ; while those of teas, taken in conjunction with the transactions in sugar and coffee, " demonstrate," says a London paper, " that there has been a considerable amelioration in the condition of the masses of consumers in the United Kingdom/ The most gratifying accounts had also been received from the provinces.