Year: 1875

Total -Yl15,2Jl ,3o9 SlJ2,24l,1oi ff,oof


The quantity of sugar, tea, and coffee i'm
ported in 1875 is greater than in the preced-
ing years, though the value shows falling
off. Comparing the total for 1875 with that
for 1878, we find a decline of less than eight
per cent, against a decrease of more than
double that Iate in the imports of all kinds.
Of the British produce and manufactures ex-
ported more than fOur-Gfths arc manufactures,
and it is worthy of notice that the continuous
decline in their value as yet shows no sign OF
coming to an end. On the contrary the cir
cumstances attending the recent failures OF
several firms largely engaged in the East India
trade point to the continuance of the present
tendencies. Hitherto for long period the
value of the British exports has doubled once
in every fourteen or fifteen years. Now, as it
appears, some of England's best customers have
undertaken 70 fabricate many things for them
selves which they formerly bought of her manu-
facturers. In this category we venture to
place the United States. In the calendar year
1878 more than ono-eighth of the entire ex
ports of British manufactures were sent to the
United States, but in future the proportion is
likely to be far less than that Finally, it has
been discovered that the British export trade
has been too extensively based on credit.
Vast quantities of British ronware and cotton
goods have been exchanged for stocks and
bonds which have turned out worthless. A
Committee of the House of Commons has
lately been investigating the subject of foreign
loans, and the disclosures show that knaves
and simplctons still abound in Britain, as well
as elsewhere.


We are well acquainted with the doctrine
that if we curtail our imports we must in the
end reduce our exports, and we are also sensi-
BILE that violent fluctuations in trade, such as
those we have noticed, are serious evils The
fluctuations we trust we shall avoid in future,
but our imports even now are not sufficiently
reduced below the level of our exports to en-
able us to score off any considerable amount
of our enormous Indebtedness to foreign capi
talists. OF this fact the unusual force of the
present drain on our gold coin is conclusive
proof. An honest nation, deeply in debt
to another nation, as we are to Great
Britain, is compelled to "pay tribute" to
the creditor ratiOn-sO Mr. Mill expresses
it. We cannot regard it as credtable to us
as nation to fail to discharge our debts,
even though we are forced by dire necessity
to default. We think it preferable to submit
to many hardships for tho sake Of hOnorably
extricating ourselves, rather than follow any
longer the devil-may- care course of cOntnu-
ally adding to the balance against u.s. The
business of the whole commercial world of
recent years has probably been based too
much on credit, and hence the severity of the
reaction now going on, which bids fair to out
last any similar period Of depression since that
following the Overtrading between 1880 and
1887


We have not gone into any particulars of
the export trade of the United States and the
import trade of England, because both, being
largely made up of agricultural productions,
are subject to violent fluctuations from the vi
cissitudes of the seasons. One or two bad
harvests seldom fail to produce serious cOnse-
ouences to British trade and credit, while
good harvests and the resulting low
prices are equally damaging to the
countries which supply England with food and
cotton. Where credit enters into every trans
action, and nearly every planter, trader,
farmer, and manufacturer stretches his credit
to the utmost, the wide fluctuations in prices
produced by good and bad seasons cannot fail
to be disastrous. With cotton, wheat, and
most of our other exports at low price, we
now have q realizing sense of the difficulty of
dealing with an adverse balance of payments
in our transactions with foreigners. 1t may
reasonably be hoped, however, that we have
experienced the worst part of the present in
fiction.