COLONIAL TRADE.

Patea Mail, 28 June 1881, Page 4

COLONIAL TRADE.

As to colonial trade and the colonies the Home News says—lt is for the interest of neither to part company. The colonies receive countenance, advice, and, in great emergencies, substantial support. In return, they offer to the mother country an increasing market for her manufactured goods. Nothing is more marked in recently published trade returns than the steady growth of exports to our colonies. Exports to foreign countries have displayed a tendency to diminish. The United States of America, once our best and largest customer, are now manufacturing on their own account, and there is a continuous decrease of the British exports thither. It is the same with France; and the decrease will be greater probably at the expiration of the commercial treaty, which is not now very far off. Other continential nations, Germany especially, take less and less of our goods. But in the colonial trade the tendency, on the contrary, is upward. The total exports have greatly increased during the last few years. Canada is a much larger buyer; so is Australia, while India, which for the purpose of the argument, may clearly be styled a colony, makes a demand for English goods almost equal to that of the United States.