The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-05-15 00:00:00

THE REVIVAL OF TRADE.

The Trade and Navigation Returns for April are in a high
degree encouraging. There is an increase of 203 per cent.
in the value of the imports and of 34 per cent. in the value
of the exports compared with the figures for April, 18'79.
The Times of Saturday comments upon this increase in an
article, from which we make the following extract

Whatever doubt there may have been as to the
reality of the trade revival of the present year, it can
hardly be maintained in face of the returns, we pub-
lish this morning. The increase during the past month
' on both sides of the account is shown to have been
marked and progressive. There has been a rise in the
quantity and value of most of the chief articles of ex-
port and import. In several instances the advances lias
been by leaps and bounds. Under the head of "Iron
and Steel" we find the returns of April, 1880, more
than double those of the corresponding month of 1879.
ln cotton goods the percentage of improvement has
::•een less, but the tendency has been in the same
direction, and the total values still keep their place as
the highest on the whole list. The export of wool is a
comparatively insignificant matter' but it is satisfac-
tory to remark in this an advance to between four and
five times the figures of last year. On the side of im-
ports the improvement has been less uniform, but the
general result has been the same. There has been a
decline in flax, hemp, and raw silk, but this has been
more than made up for by the advance in articles of con-
sumption and in other raw products. The entire tables
are extremely. favourable. The whole result of the
• month is that imports have increased by more than
20 per cent. beyond those of 1879, and exports by 34
per cent. There is no disputing the significance of
these figures, following as they do the reassuring re-
turns of the earlier months of the year. The tide, it
would appear, has at last turned, and the long trade
depression which we have been struggling through bids
fair to be compensated for by the season of cheerful-
ness and prosperity on which we seem now to be
entering.
The returns are suggestive on many points, but on
none more than on the very important item of "iron
and steel." Iron and steel now take only just not the
first place in our whole list of exports. The advance
tliey show over the_past year is much the most con-
siderable of any. The proceedings of the Iron and
Steel Institute go far to explain the figures shown
in the trade eturns. They tell us of the
enterprise which has been displayed in deal-
ing with these two metals, of the new processes
which have been discovered for adding to their value
and use, and ,of the astonishing nature of the results
which have already been reached. In point of fact a
new industry has been created, in which this country
has the greatest interest of any. Our native iron is
not equal in quality to that which we import from
abroad. The art has now been found of so treating
the imperfect raw material as to get rid of its original
faults and to produce from it, without undue cost of
manufacture' a steel which may challenge comparison
with any other in the world. The practical result of this
seems likely to be that iron will almost disappear from
use, and that its place will be taken by steel. Steel is the
more durable metal, so much sorthat even when it was
very much more costly than iron it was for many pur-
poses the cheaper in the end. But when steel can be
produced at a comparAively low cost, and can be
bent and shaped to every purpose for which either
metal can be employed, there Cs no doubt which of the
two metals will be chosen. The Iron and Steel In-
stitute will have to drop the first half of its title, or
will retain it only • to signify the raw material
from which its real subject-matter has been formed.
The trade returns of last April show that England
is something more than holding her own against her
foreign rivals in the new Industry of the day. Eng-
lish manufacturers are often charged with not adapt-
themselves as readily as others do to the new
requirements of trade. They go on, it has been said,
'using old methods, which have lopeen superseded and
set aside in other countries. The trade returns we
publish this morning may be taken, together with the
Iron and Steel Institute r eports, as negativing satis-
factorily some part of this .charge. They prove that
Englishmen are not behind the rest of the world in
one of the most important of all modern industries,
and that their energy and inventive genius are
receiving a good instalment of the reward they have
well deserved