What the Colony Exports

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 39, 15 August 1893, Page 2

What the Colony Exports

At the instance ot Sir John Hall a return has been laid on the table of the House showing the quality and value year by year, for the last 20 years, of the seven principal articles of export from the colony. These seven articles are wool, gold, grain of all kinds, flax, Kauri-^iim, butter and cheese, and frozen meat. Wool of course lias had a substantial lead in value all along, although in the first year given, 1873, gold reached a total of £1,987,425, as against £2,702,471 for wool. In 1892 the latter had risen to £4,317,307, and the former had fallen to £951,963. The total amount received for wool in the twenty years was nearly sixty-seven and a quarter millions, whilst gold yielded just over twenty-two millions. Grain came third with rather more than twelve and three quarter millions. The foreign meat industry although only ten years old has already sprung into the position of second in importance. For each of the past three years it has exceeded in value a million sterling, whilst gold, the third in import, ance has only reached a million in one (1891) of those years. Of the other articles in 1892 grain with £796,344 was fourth, kauri-gum, with £517,678 fifth, butter and cheese, with £318,204 sixth, and flax, with L 214,542 was seventh. Perhaps the most interesting part of the return is that showing the prices of articles of export, which prices are based on the exporters declarations of value. These statistics show that wool in the period 1882-92 ranged from 8£ per pound in 1886 to 11 id in 1882. In 1892 the figure was 3£d. Gold, of course, has fluctuated but slightly, being put down at L 4 per ounce for six out of the eleven years. In 1889 it was returned at its lowest figure, viz., L 3 19s 6d. We need not a return to remind us how the grain growers have suffered, and therefore it is not with any surprise that we see that the price fell from 4s 2|d per bushel in 1882, to 2s 2d in 1887 ; in 1872 the price given is 2s s£d. Flax reached it« highest point in 1889, when it was valued at £16 15s 5d whilst it was lowest in 1886 when it only yielded £14 7s. Butter on the whole has been fairly steady, its highest point having been lOd per pound (1883), and its lowest 6|d (1887) ; since the latter year the changes have been small and for last year the return states the price at 9d. Cheese has varied from 6d in 1882 to 4Jd in 1888-90-91 ; last year it fetched 4^d. Frozen meat, the last item on the list, has varied from 27s 2d per cwt. in 1884 to 22s 8d in 1887 ; in 1892 the price was 23s 9d. It will be noticed how very consistently the values fell in the years 1886-87. Out of the seven articles dealt with no less than five sunk to their lowest level in one of these years. In this return more interest is centred in the single slip of paper on which it is printed than is often to be found in 50 sides of some of the dreary productions coming from the Government printing office. — Chronicle.