FOREIGN AND COLONIAL TRADE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1285, 2 May 1878, Page 3

FOREIGN AND COLONIAL TRADE.

At the Royal Colonial Institute on Feb. 26th, the Duke of Manchester in the chair, the lion, secretary, Mr Frederick Young, in the author’s unavoidable absence, read a paper by Dr. Forbes Watson, Director of the Indian Museum, on “ The Character of the Colonial and Indian Trade of England contrasted with her Foreign Trade.” Our colonial trade was, he said, distinguished from our foreign trade by certain characteristics which considerably enhanced the importance it already possessed. Dr. Watson grouped the colonies as—l, Trading and military stations; 2, plantation colonies ; 3, agricultural, pastoral, and mining. Taking first these last, such as Australia, Canada, and the Capo, he found that while English trade with the United States, our best foreign customer, would be £2 5s per head, that with Canada was three-fold greater, with Australia sevenfold greater, and that with a colonist at the Cape fifteen-fold greater. In the plantation colonies, such as the West Indies, Ceylon, and Mauritius, the trade per white inhabitant amounted to £3lO, of which £165 was English. In the case of the trading stations, such as Hongkong, Singapore, and Malta, the few European residents were but the intermediaries of a vast trade with the adjacent foreign countries, so that the amount of total trade for each white inhabitant was £IO,OOO, of which £2OOO was English. The returns for 1876 placed India ahead of every other country in the absorption of British produce and merchandise, whereas in 1869 it ranked third only, standing behind (he United States and Germany. He stated that between 1869 and 1876 the exports of British home produce to the British possessions had increased £17,000,000, while the exports to foreign countries sunk £6,000,000. Foremost among the leading export trades of England, constituting about one-third of the whole, was the cotton trade, and in 1876 the British possessions absorbed 40 per cent, more cotton manufactures than in 1869. In 1876 the colonial demand for our cotton w r ares rose to twofifths of our whole export, while against its increase during the eight years of £6,300,000 we had to set a falling off in the foreign demand amounting to £4,500,000. Similar observations applied to most of the other trades, the foreign demand being either stationary or declining, while the exports to the British possessions were rapidly rising.