ACTIVITY OF BRITISH COMMERCE.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XVI, Issue 7, 22 April 1857, Page 4

ACTIVITY OF BRITISH COMMERCE.

[From the Times.'] No fact can more clearly show the enormous activity of British commerce than this — that the exports of our home produce and manufactures for eleven months of the present year exceed by £\ 0,000,000 in value our similar exports for the whole of the preceding year. The value of the produce and manufactures of the United Kingdom exported in 1855 amounted to .£95,000,000 ; when the returns I of the present year are published they will probably exhibit an increase of more than £20, 000,000 for the whole year. But, although these sums are manageable enough on paper, who of us can fully appreciate them ? Who knows what is meant by the phrase that the sun is 95,000,000 of miles distant from our globe 1 And who, in his imagination, can estimate the difference between such a distance aud 20,000,000 miles further? Who is not rather perplexed than enlightened by the explanations of those who calculate the number of years which it would take for a cannon-ball to traverse the space, and the length of road still to be travelled over by a stage-coach started from the sun in the beginning of the present century? We are in a similar difficulty with regard to our £95,000,000 worth of exports and the astonishing increase which is apparent in the year now drawing to a close — an increase that, compared with our previous rate of progress, is as railway speed compared with the jogtrot of* old Hobson the carrier. We have been for many centuries a trading people. We know that we have been enterprising, and we think that we have done wonders ; but, in all our past history up to the end of last year, we had raised the value of our annual exports to a sum that is only five times as great as the mere increase — the step in advance— of the current year. We have hitherto been content to add a few thousand pounds per annum to our exportations. In the year 1853 free trade and the gold discoveries had begun to work, and at one bound we added £20,000,000 to our exports. During the two subsequent years of war, our trade, though it showed no signs of advance, gave only the very faintest symptoms of retrogression ; and now, in this first year of peace, we make another rush forward of £20,000,000. It will be understood, of course, that these sums do not represent the total of our exports ; to make the returns complete, there ought to be added the value of our exports of foreign and colonial merchandise. If these have increased at the same rate as our other exports, then, as last year they were computed to be worth dF20,000,000 (we give the real, not official, value), this year they will amount to more than £25,000,000 ; so that our total exports will be more than £140,000,000, or a sum equivalent to the imports of last year. The idea which these figures convey will perhaps be rendered most definite by comparing them with certain realities that are too well known — the taxation of the country and the natioual debt. It is scarcely fair to compare them with the war expenditure of the last two years ; but if we reckon the public expenditure at £70,000,000 — a very high estimate, and double what Mr. Cobden declares that it ought to be — it is but half what our export trade amounts to. Since 1848, that year of revolution which entailed so many disasters on the commerce of continental nations, our exports of home produce and manufactures have been more than doubled, and our imports have increased proportionately. To speak in round numbers, we had, eight years ago, but £60,000,000 worth of exports to compare with our national debt, while now we can compare it with nearly £120,000,000 of the exported produce and manufactures of the United Kingdom, not to speak of our other exports. We trust that there may never be occasion to increase our debt ; we rather hope indeed to see it ere long diminished, and diminished permanently : but, as there are some among us who are prone to despond when they consider our heavy liabilities, and as we have enemies who may be disposed to see in our burdens an evidence of weakness, a cause of rejoicing and an invitation to insolence, it may be as well to keep constantly in view the extent of our resources. We know not what we can bear ; we are impatient of taxes in general, and the income-tax in particular ; but were the national debt doubled to-morrow, and £28,000,000 more of revenue required to meet the interest of it, the

prosperity of the country is so great that it would cost us comparatively very little selfdenial to meet the demand and submit to the tax.