"THE TRIUMPH OF FREETRADE."

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8924, 4 November 1890, Page 3

"THE TRIUMPH OF FREETRADE."

At the annual meeting of the Cobden Club, held at the National Liberal Club, London, in July last, a very interesting and highly instructive paper, under the above title, was read by Mr G. W. Medley, one of the members. Many of the statements therein contained have so close a connection with similar conditions at the present time in this colony, not least in our own district, as to plead an excuse for briefly touching on them, particularly at a crisis like the present, and in the face of a near approaching election of representatives in the next Parliament. Taking tho period extending from 1886 to 1889, inclusive, it appears that during those four years the total value of exports and imports in the United Kingdom has risen from £618,530,489 in 1886 to £743,230,274 in 1889 ; or per head of the population from £16 17s to £19 12s 7d— that is, the commercial wealth of Great Britain has increased upwards of twe've per cent, in the last f onr years ! Furthermore, the volume of trade, as it is termed, was 8 per cent, greater in 1889 than in the preceding year 1888; the rise in price of articles sold over those bought was in the above year 1889 in imports I*l4 per cent., exports 2*32 per cent., over that in 1888. " But," adds Mr Medley, " the Board of Trade returns for the first six months (of this present year 1890) show 367£ millions, being an increase (over last year) of seven million*. It likewise appears that in the year 1887 the aggregate amount of British capital invested in new loans and new companies was £116,398,000 ; in the year 1889 the amount had risen to £189,000,000. In the year 1887 the total valuation of Foreign Holdings in Great Britain liable to Income Tax was officially returned at £28,000,000; in the year 1884 the assessment was £33,900,000 ; in 1888, £40,200,000. "This tax," observes the author, "is collected only on what is remitted to this country, and there is every reason to suppose that the annual income on our foreign investments is nearer 120 than 100 millions sterling." He may well add : " This is an exhibit which no other nation can match, and is sufficient in itself to scatter to the winds the nonsense we sometimes hear about onr gaying for our excess of imports by selling our foreign securities." Under the head "Railway Traffic," it is stated, that in the year 1888 the total receipts were £64,111,000 ; in 1889, £67,588,000, being an increase of £3,477,000, during this period of twelve months, received for passengers, minerals, and merchandise. Under the head, Bank Deposits, excluding the Bank of England, in January, 1889, the total sums were £570,000,000 to £580,000,000. In January, 1890, £600,000,000 to £610,000,000, or an increase of thirty millions. A pretty sure indication of the continuous improvement in the material condition of the laboring classes in Great Britain is afforded under — Ist. Saving Banks :In these Banks the total deposits on January Ist, 1888, amounted to £101,060,258 ; January Ist, 1889, £104,574,456; January Ist, 1890, £107,882,373. 2nd. Pauperism : On January Ist, 1888, the total number of paupers in England and Wales was 825,509; January Ist, 1889, the total was 810,132; January Ist, 1890, 793,465, being a decrease of over 32,000 within the above period. The estimated population of England and Wales in the middle of this year (1890} being 29,015,613, the paupers relieved were 1 in 37 of the population, or 2*7 per cent, the lowest since the year 1858, when the percentage of pauperism was 4*BB. Under the head, "Agriculture," the state of which has been so bitterly bewailed, we find the following figures. The total number of live stock in the United Kingdom was :—: — 1888. 1889. Horses ... 1,936,702 ... 1,945,386 Cattle ... 10,268,700 ... 10,272,765 Sheep ... 28,938,716 ... 29,484,774 Pigs ... 3,815,643 ... 3,905,865 There has been during this period a rise in price as follows : — Cattle, 20*7 per cent ; sheep, 32*2 per cent. ; horses, 28 per cent. ; The total value of all live stock is reckoned as worth, in the year 1888, at 228 millions compared with 184 millions in 1887. The increase in the number of holdings occupied by tenants in Great Britain was 5,786 in the year 1889 ; that in the area cultivated, 106,809 acres in 1889 over 1888. "The Journal of the Newcastle Farmers' Clnb," from which these last returns are quoted, remarks : " It is a prosperity which has been shared in by all classes, not by our capitalists and business men alone, but by our artisans and labourers, who form the great mass of onr population." The Labour Report to the Board of Trade for last March contains, among other instructive statements, this fact : that the total proportion of the labouring classes out of work was in that month 1*40; in February, a very slack season in Britain, be it noted, T44 only. This, too, in spite of 106 strikes recorded during the month of March, 1890. Very appropriate is the extract from the German newspaper Fiankfwter Zeitung, with which this portion of Mr Medley's address concludes : " It is to Freetrade, and to the faithful adherence to the same that Great Britain owes her great recovery, which enables her to enter all raw material and help manufactured goods, without any additional costs of duty." In my next, sir, I propose to offer your readers a few pictures, taken from Protectionist countries, by the same writer. Egmont.