ENGLISH TRADE IN THE NEW YEAR.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1909, 7 April 1880, Page 2

ENGLISH TRADE IN THE NEW YEAR.

The Board of Trade returns for January show that the improvement which has now continued without a check since September last has made fresh progress in the opening month of the year. The total declared value of the exports was £l6 912,853, against £14,196,518 in January, 1879, and £15,423,911 in January, 1873. Of this gain iron and steel represent about a third, and cotton manufactures nearly as much ; but moßt of the items contribute something, and it is worth notice that the American demand is responsible for only part of this improvement even in such a commodity as iron, while in ether articles —cotton goods, for instance, the augmentation extends over the whoie range of our foreign markets, the United States contribu. ting a very trifling proportion. The inference is, of course, plain to all who are conversant with either the theory or the mechanism of trade. The reduced cost of production in every English industry of any importance has opened out foreign markets where English manufacturers had been undersold, or where the impaired circumstances of consumers had for some time prevented their purchases. The chief increase, taking the list in alphabetical order, is in the following:—Alkali, arms and ammunition, beer, chemicals, coals, copper, cotton yarn, cotton manufactures, earthenware, glass, hardware, iron and steel —more than double the total in January, 1879—leather, jute yarn, linen manufactures, jute manufactures, machinery, oils, tin, wool, and " unonumeraled articles." Of woollen and worsted manufactures the value is almost identically the same in last month and the corresponding January. According to these returns the declared value of the imports was £32,372,907, against £26,367,046 in January, 1879, and £30,609,956 in January, 1873. The chief increase has been in cotton, silk, cereals, provisions, and wine.