The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-06-26 00:00:00

OUR IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.

The monthly Accounts relating to Trade and Naviga-
tion which have just been issued are merely a continua-
tion of the long series, which the last eighteen months
have presented, of continually augmenting imports, and
diminishing exports.
We may, indeed, allow some exception to the last par-
ticular, when we have to compare March and April, 1849,
with March and April, 1848. This period of last year was
one of mere " earthquake" on the continent, and it was
naturally, therefore, a period in which trade was almost
entirely suspended. That the present spring should seem
almost one of activity and liveliness, in comparison with
the time of barricades, it is not at all surprising. But
few persons will be deceived by such a comparison.
The principal feature of the case, is, the continual and
rapid increase of our imports. These may be judged of,
in some measure, by the following items :
ImponTs. Four Months Four Months
of 1848. of 1849.
Sheep....
Corn, qrs.
Flour, cwts.
Hides, tanned or curried 121,426 389,918
Women's boots or shoes .. 30,307 37,267
Boot fronts
Gloves .. 1,025,195 1,417,381
Potatoes, cwts.
Bacon, ditto
Beef, salted, ditto 39,395 96,008
Pork, salted, ditto 37,164 113,156
Eggs .. 29,181,503 34,389,398
Silk Goods. lbs...
Watches £22,083 25,572
Woollen Goods £124,592 166,684

These items show, as we have already said, that, the
English market being thrown open to all the world,
foreign manufacturers and producers are thronging into
it ; one result of which must inevitably be, the throwing,
day by day, and week by week, a greater number of En-
glish artisans and labourers out of employment.
The political economists always reply, that this is non-
sense : for that we do not get these foreign goods for
nothing, and must therefore pay for them by an increased
export of our own manufactures. This is a very pretty
theory ; but, unfortunately, the returns made up at our
Custom-houses show nothing of the kind. An increase
we doubtless find of our exports in January April,
1849, as compared with January April, 1848, and it
would be wonderful were it not so. But there is no in-
crease at all resembling the increased imports which we
have just particularised. The improvement in our foreign
trade is thus shown:—

EXPORTS Four Months Four Months
of 1848. of 1849.
Cotton manufactures £5,081,392 5,806,907
Earthenwares
Glass
Haberdashery
Hardware 644,760 586,589
Linen manufactures
Machinery
Silk Manufactures 159,583 191,181
Woollens, pieces 1,071,120 1,260,471

. _
These advances, we repeat, might naturally be calcu-
lated on from the gradual subsidence of that commotion
which, in the spring of 1848, was in its height on the
Continent. But this increase in exports does not at all
balance the far larger augmentation in our imports, for
which, too, there is no similar cause to be shown in any
internal improvement in our own circumstances. The
influx of foreign goods is rather the effect of a spreading
feeling on the Continent that the English is still the high-
est market—a feeling which will continue and increase
until, by ceaseless competition, it has reduced English
prices and English wages to the continental level.