The Trade Returns.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 101, 9 May 1885, Page 3

The Trade Returns.

The import and export returns for the firs quarter of the present year exhibit very littlo improvement over the returns for the same period of 1884. The imports are £70,000 higher, totalling up £2,172,373 but tho exports exhibit a falling off, being £123,861 less than in the corresponding quarter of last year. The quarter's exports exceeded the imports by £364,311. The March quarter, embracing the harvest, is, however, always a heavy export quarter, and tho £2,536,684 value represents more than a three-months' average for the whole year. The return displays some curious contrasts. Auckland imported more and exported less than in the same period of the previous year, and so also Dunedin. At Lyttelton, the imports were about the came as in 1834, and the exports £116,000 greater. If an exceps of exports over imports betokens prosperity, Canterbury should be the most prosperous piovinco of New Zealand. The imports at Lyttelton were £352,491, and the exports £722,497, yet Canterbury is more depressed than any other district in the colony. May not an explanation be found in the large amount of produce required to pay in? terest on her heavy deljt tQ foreign mprfc: gagees? In AupJslan,d, th.c imports were £544,072 | the exports, only ; Dunedjn, imports, £642,606; exports, £558,321 ; Wellington, imports, £384,241 ; exports, £501,511. Auckland still hendg the shipping ports of tho cojony \t\t\s ofj vessels entered inwards, grogging 40,843 tons } Wellington, $4 vpsaols, of 24,559 tons ; Lyttelton, 32 vessels, of 13*184 tons j and $Jmuadi%43 vessal^ of 32*103 fcooiu.