The Trade of New Zealand

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 106, 7 April 1888, Page 3

The Trade of New Zealand

The Pall Mall Gazette puts New Zealand's position in the following figures :— The statistics ef the trade of' New Zealand for 1886, which are only now to hand, show . that the colony had a very bad year. The total trade amounted to £13,342,000 a decrease on that for the year 1885 of £958,000. The trade . with the United Kingdom amounted to £9,068,---000, a decrease to the extent of £1,066,000. This trade was 67.5 per . Cent of the whole. The imports and exports per head by the mean popu lation, 580,386 (exclusive of the -Maoris 42,000), in the years 1884, 1885, and 1886 were as follows :—

or, including the Maoris, in 1886, imports, £10 16s 7d; exports, £10 13s l'Od. There has thus been a condderable reduction in the value per head of both imports and experts in recent years. The reduced value imports is largely attributable to the contraction is expenditure of loan money by the Government, and the •mailer amount of capital seat to the colony for investment, as wen as the reduction in the prices of imported articles. The smaller values of the exports are due to low price obtained tot produce, in the case of grain causing a diminished production, and in other directions accompanied with a considerably larger production. If the values of grain and wool had been the same in 1885 as in 1875, the exports would have been worth more by £4 6s per head of the mean population. The expansion of the exports of frozen meats continues. The amount and value of these exports were greater in 1886 that in any of the previous years. The increase in quantify in 1886 was at the rate of 16.7 per cent on the exports in 1885, and in value 14.3 per cent.

1884. 1885. 1886. £ s. d. £». d. £8. d. Imports 13 17 4 13 4 9 112 2 Exports 13 16 0 12 14f 11 9 3