The star of Pascagoula. [volume] (Pascagoula, Miss.) 1873-1878, 1877-09-14
ENGLAND.
Alarmed mt the Failing or In her Ex.
port Painfully Familiar
Enct-keNIeM BY The Times.

Fact Review by the Times.
The annul statement of the trade ofthe
United Kingdom with foreign countries
and British possessions has just been is
sued for 1876. The Times remarks;
"The country is painfully familiar with
the fact that our export trade is falling
off, and the abstract tables given in the
beginning of the volume enable us to
trace where this falling off is most pro,
nounced. Thus we see that our exports to
Germany were last year nearly twelve
million five hundred thousand pounds
sterling lower in value than in 1872;
that France is a very steady customer,
and also Italy. Trade has also been
wonderfully kept up with Turkey as a
whole, though Turkey in Europe shows
a great falling off. Petty borrowing
states all show very badly as a rule, such
as Peru, the Argentine confederation,
Colombia, and such like, whose trade got
a few years, unhealthy stimulus from
ill-spent English gold. As a whole,
however, the export table is not so dis
couraging as we might have expected,
nearly every leading customer, except
the United States and Germany, show.
ing, all things considered, a remarkable
steadiness in purchasing power. There
are special hindrances, of course, to our
trade with the American union, but
these allowed for, it is a standing fact all
the same that our exports thither have
%fallentrom about forty.six million pounds
sterling, including the Pacific trade, in
1872, to a little more than twenty mil
lion pounds sterling last year. The ex-
port trade to our own foreign possessions
keeps fairly good, and though last years
totals were below those of the three pre-
vious years, they are still more than
four million pounds sterling above 1872,
the Australian and South African trade
being the steadiest of all. Our exports
to Canada, however, show very severe
depresslons last year compared with
1875. AS to particular articles, the Ia
bles are equally valuable and instruc-
tive. The quantities tables particularly
tend, even on the export side of the ac-
count, to lessen in some measure the
alaim with which we are ready to view
the serious fall in values. They show us,
tor one thing, that a little over-prOduc-
ton has a disastrous influence on prices.
1t is true that if we take such an
exceptional article as iron, the quantities
exported suggest no consolation, tor the
falling off in demand has been more than
one million tons in 1876 compared with
1872, taking iron and steel together.
Few other articles, however, give such a
bad testimony, although prices are
nearly universally depressed. The ex-
port of %unwrought copper has, for
instance, increased steadily in quantity
for the last three years, and the export
of yellow metal was decidedly greater in
1876 than in 1872 or 1875, though smaller
than in the conference.-the years; yet prices
for these have gone down very severely.
Again our exports of cotton piece-goods
have remained almost at a level for the
whole five years, and were last year at
their highest point. Yet these prices
have also given way, in part, no doubt,
through overstocked India and China
markets, or because of a competition in
prices with other sources of supply. The
record ofmost kinds OF w~oollen goods is not
quite so satisfactory, although we should
not callthe figures disheartening, judged
by quantities only"