The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-10-09 00:00:00

3tonlribge (Nsertrer.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1869.

TRADE AND COMMERCE.

We have long been familiar with complaints
as to the dulness of trade and commerce, but it
would seem as though the clouds were now
breaking, and as if our commercial prospects
are decidedly brightening. The national hal-
ance•sheet for the quarter and the year ending
September 80, is full of encouragement, show-
ing, as it does, that though our revenue is below
what we might wish, it is still as large as we
could reasonably expect. The gross revenue for
. the year just ended, the financial year, Is
.03,288,747, which, compared with that of the
COI Milli-aiding twelve months preceding, 'hews
an increase of £2,800,000 in round numbers.
Much of this, it is true, comes from an unplea-
sant source the property tax ; but there is 80
I much additional revenue from other sources
that, with improving trade, we may confidently
look for the lightening of the load of taxation
on property. 'there is nearly a million increase
on the year, in the item of eXCIIO, which is so
good an index of the prosperity of the people.
The Post Uilice revenue shows Cu eonsiderable
an increase that we may fairly take this increase
as 01111111:4 that the time 113,4 mov arrived when
we ought to have cheaper postage on newsp.ipers
and printed matter. The establishment could
now well afford to lose any revenue that might
immediately suffer from the lowering of the rates
certain that in the Milgrim the loss would in due
time he changed into a profit. There is ono
item which both on the year and the quarter
shows a decrease, and the decrease is important.
The Customs for the peat year show a fulling-off
of a quarter of a million as compared with the
previous year, and on the quarter it decrease of
.f 155,000. These facts, taken in conjunction
with the increase in the excise, hardly bear out
the complaint of the "revivers " of which we
have beard so much lately, and on the other
indicate that our home trade is in a healthy
state.

For the condition of our home trade, how-
ever, we rather look to the Board of Trade re-
turns. These have just been issued for the past
month, and the past eight months, and they
show an increase of £937,000 in the value of
our exports, as compared with the preceding
month. This is an improvement of 6 per cent.
TO show that this is not a spasmodic improve-
ment, it may he added that the increase on the
eight months, as compared w ith the correspond-
ing eight months of the previous year, is no less
than eight per cent. These returns undoubtedly
indicate improving commerce, trade, and navi-
gation, and although we cannot thus decide any
information as to the profit at which our export
trade is conducted, we may reasonably infer that
increased demand does not indicate diminished
profit, for it does not do so as a rule. It we re-
fer to the reports of the state of trade, as they
come from the great manufacturing towns and
the great centres of trading and commercial en-
terprise, we find these eports are, on the whole,
satisfactory. They show that though commerce
and trade are still in some measure depreassed,
yet they have certainly become more active than
they were, we will say, this time last year. In
the coal told iron trades especially there is con-
siderable improvement, end an activity marks
these two great branches of enterprise to which
they have long been strangers. True, it may
be that the comparison is with thfineas and de-
pression rather than with a fair average trade;
but the comparison, is, nevertheless, none the
less cheering, inasmuch as the dulness and de-
pression are passing away, and comparative ac-
tivity succeeding. In retail trade generally there
appears to be, so far as we can judge, BOWE im-
provement, and endonbtedly there has been ex-
perienced a growth of public confidence, so far
11,1 limited liability eompanies are concerned.
Ins woril, trade mid commerce, though not iitiwo-
Intely brisk and active, are sound and healthy,
and were there not quite so much croaking, our
commercial position would be a still better one.