profit; and as the declared value of our exports includes the cost of the raw material, as well as the cost and profit of manufacture, it is obvious that when the raw material rises in price, the proportion of our profit to the total value of the goods exported will be reduced. Cotton is now fully treble the price it was in 1860; so that, although the value of exported cotton goods last year was only 10 per cent less than in 1860, the diminution in the profits of our manufacturers will greatly exceed this proportion. The quantity of the goods exported is a better criterion of the profits of our manufacturers than the value of the goods,-the value being largely affected by fluctuations in the cost of the raw material. It is the quantity of their manufacture (in other words, the amount of work which they get to do) that chiefly regulates the profits of the millowners; and, we need hardly say, it is likewise the quantity of our manufactures which indicates the amount of employment furnished to our people. Although the value of cotton exports this year promises even to exceed that of 1860, neither the profits of our manufacturers, nor the amount of employment for our operatives, will be nearly so great as they were four years ago.

Let us analyse the Board of Trade returns, and show in detail of what our traffic with foreign countries consists. The Imports are what we buy, the Exports are what we sell. Of the 249 millions' worth of goods which we imported last year, twofifths (103 millions) consisted of materials for our manufactures: of which amount fully one-half consisted of cotton, and rather less than one-half of wool, silk, flax and hemp, hides, oil and tallow, metals, indigo, and saltpetre. The other great branch of our imports consists of food and stimulants, or luxuries, for the subsistence of our people, and forms nearly one-third (75 mil lions) of our whole imports. Of this amount one-half consists of the necessaries of life-grain and flour,

bacon, butter, cheese, and rice; the other half of what may be called luxuries-sugar, tea, coffee, wine and spirits, tobacco and fruit. The remaining portion of our imports consists of wood, for house and ship building and furniture, manufactured articles of dress, &c. We import twice as much cotton as corn, and twice as much corn as wool. Next, as to Exports. Of the 146 millions' worth of goods which we sold to other countries last year, fully two-thirds (100 millions) consisted of articles manufactured by us out of foreign materials-the cotton goods alone amounting in value to 47 millions; and less than one-third of materials of our own production (raw or manufactured), chiefly metals and coal. Cotton goods form the largest portion of our exports, and next to them metals and metal goods, the former constituting one-third, and the latter one-fourth, of the whole of our exports. We export twice as much cotton as woollen goods, and twice as much woollen as linen. The total value of the metals and metal goods exported last year was 33 millions, but we cannot claim all this as the produce of our own materials, seeing that we imported four millions' worth of metals (chiefly copper) from other countries. It is also to be observed that while we import about 90 millions' worth of cotton, wool, silk, flax, hemp, and hides, we only export articles manufactured from these materials to an equal value and as the value of the manufactured article may (even with the present high prices of the raw material) be stated at almost double that of the raw material, we may infer that nearly one-half of these imports are consumed in the manufacture of clothing for our own people. If this be correct, about 40 millions' worth of the textile fabrics imported are required by us for clothing. Thus, in addition to the produce of our own country, we import 75 millions' worth of food, and 40 millions' worth of the raw materials of cloth

ing, besides nearly 20 millions' worth of other goods, consisting of articles of dress and for household use, and wood for building and furniture:-in all, 135 millions' worth of foreign goods are consumed by Ius annually, simply in maintaining our present highly comfortable existence.*

The two largest items in our imports-namely, cotton and corn -are also the most variable, alike as regards quantity and price. The variations of the one are due to natural, and of the other to political causes. The state of the wea

ther, the favourable or unfavourable nature of the season, determines whether our harvest is a good or bad one; and the difference in value between a very good and a very bad harvest is at least twenty millions sterling. In other words, in a very bad year we have to buy of our neighbours twenty millions more corn than when our harvest is decidedly good. This makes an enormous difference in the national balance-sheet. The outlay of the farmer is the same in a bad year as in a good one; the expenses of cultivation are a fixed

charge, but the return depends on the skies and the weather. A fine summer is worth twenty millions in hard cash to this country, besides the many other less direct benefits which it brings. Father Sol is a very potent deity, whose favours we cannot afford to slight. His rays are a veritable shower of gold. He is fickle, it is true, though not quite so fickle as of yore; and we may hope for some slight improvement still, when by draining and planting or clearing we have rendered our Isles a more pleasant spot for him to look upon. Of late years the variations in the amount of corn imported have been unusually great. In 1859 the amount imported was not quite £18,000,000; in the two following years it rose to 31 and 34 millions; in 1862 to 37 millions, more than double what it was in '59; last year it was £26,000,000, and this year it promises to be as much.

The variations in the import of cotton during the same years have been still more remarkable. Indeed the changes connected with the late cotton crisis are the most astounding of their kind that could well be imagined. A civil war in America suddenly sealed up the region from which we derived fivesixths of our supply of cotton; by far the most important branch of our manufacturing industry was smitten with paralysis; a large portion of the clothing of mankind

1860.

Quantity imported, cwts., 12,419,096 Price,

From United States, From other countries,

became suddenly very scarce and dear; and a great alteration took place in the channels of commerce. The old cotton fields being blocked up, new areas of cultivation were opened. Instead of drawing our supplies from, and sending our money to, the West, we have been drawing our cotton from, and sending our money to, the East. India, Egypt, and Turkey are now fertilised by the golden stream which previously poured into the United States. We need not speak of the manner in which the great calamity of the cotton famine has been borne by this country. We need not describe the admirable patience of the suffering operatives, nor the magnificent charity displayed by the nation at large on their behalf. But it may truly be said that the manner in which the calamity has been met and surmounted has astonished even ourselves. A branch of industry which employs half-amillion of operatives, and whose products constitute one-third of our export trade, was suddenly paralysed; yet the general prosperity of the country hardly experienced a check, and already our export trade is rushing ahead again at its former rate of increase. Let any one study the following brief statistics of our cotton trade during the last four years, and he will discern how vast have been the changes produced by the blockade of the American ports :

The startling change in the channels of commerce is here visible at a glance. In 1860, the United States sent us five-sixths of our supply of cotton, and now they send us next to none-only onesixtieth of their former amount. On the other hand, the rest of the world has increased its rate of supply tenfold-sending us 55 millions worth of cotton, in place of

the 5 which it sent in 1860. Another change which is strikingly shown in the above figures is that of price. Although the quantity of cotton imported fell from 12 million cwts. in 1860 to only 4 in 1862, the price which we paid for cotton in the latter year was almost as great as in the former. And last year, although the quantity imported was less than one-half what we

imported in 1860, we paid upwards of one-half more for it! So enormous has been the increase in the price of cotton, caused by the dearth on the one hand, and on the other by the general prosperity of the nations, which seems to admit of t. their buying cotton clothing freely, even at unusually high prices. In truth, it must be allowed that some circumstances connected with the late cotton crisis have sufficed greatly to moderate its bad effects. In 1860 and beginning of '61,the Southern States, seeing a blockade approaching, hurried up every bale of cotton which they had on hand; this enormous amount was as speedily worked up by our manufacturers; and the consequence was, that a great glut ensued in the markets of the world. In ordinary circumstances this glut would have produced a severe crisis in our cotton trade, and extensive failures would certainly have occurred. But, as events turned out, the over-production of 1860 proved a fortunate thing for our manufactures; for a considerable portion of the goods manufactured at low prices in that year, afterwards sold at very high prices in 1862-63. The cotton trade is still in a transition state, and fresh changes will assuredly take place as soon as peace is re-established in the United States; but these changes will be on the side of plenty; and however injurious they may perhaps be to India and the other cotton fields recently opened, they cannot fail to be highly advantageous to this country. This at least ought to be the result. But it behoves our manufacturers to bear in mind that a comparatively small amount of production when prices are at their present exorbitant height will produce a glut as certainly as a much larger production will do in ordi

nary times. An amount of production which may be healthy when prices are low, becomes altogether excessive if carried on when prices are high. In 1860-61 the glut was caused by cotton goods being too plentiful; but, let it be remembered, a similar glut may be produced simply from the goods being too dear. In 1860-61, the quantity of goods manufactured was greater than people required,-now, we fear, the price of the goods is greater than our customers at large can afford to pay. The proper remedy for this, we think, ought to be sought not in a diminution of production, but in a determined stand on the part of the manufacturers against the present exorbitant prices charged for raw cotton, which are quite unjustified by the real requirements and prospects of the trade.

Let us now see the kind of produce which each country sends us, and the commodities which each takes from us. China sends raw silk and tea; India sends cotton, indigo, and rice. We get our spices from the Philippine Islands, and almost all our coffee from Ceylon. We get a portion of our cotton from Egypt; hides chiefly from the Pampas of Buenos Ayres; wool chiefly from Australia and the Cape; wood from the northern countries of America and Europe; flax and tallow from Russia; corn chiefly from the United States and Russia; and the precious metals from Australia, California, Mexico, and the Andes of Peru. Of our exports, we send beer to India and Australia; coal to many places to supply coaling-stations for steam-vessels, but chiefly to France. We send cotton-yarn for manufacture to India, Holland, and Germany; and cotton piece-goods to India and China, Turkey, Egypt, the United States, and Brazil. Our

1857.

1858.

1859.

1861.

1863.