OUR TRADE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 381, 29 June 1889, Page 8

OUR TRADE.

A very interesting comparative tabular statement of the New Zealand exports for the financial years ending respectively 81st March, 1888, and 31st March; 1889, has been compiled by the New Zealand Trade Review. The figures are remarkable and instinctive. They show in striking prominence the industries on which this Colony chiefly depends for her trade. Above all is manifested the overwhelming importance of wool. "We have heard much of late of the large development and satisfactory piomise of the trade in frozen meat, dairy produce, grain, and flax. All of these exhibit marked progress. But the whole of the exports under these heads, lumped together, do not approach in value that of the single itero wool. In fact, ont of a total export of "New Zealand produce amounting to £7,727,953 (re-export* and specie bringing up the, snm to £8,201,409) very nearly half is due to wool. Durinir' the year we exported flax to the value of £112.190 ; flour, £3 53,081 } dairy produce, £211.801; frozen 1 meat. £6fi6,556 ; arrain, £781.BRS ; sold, £842,066. But ..the wool - export amounted to a value of no less than L 3.337,122 ! Figures snob as these impress forcibly on the mind the vast extent to which New Zealand is dependent on the production uf wool. It will take a lonar lime for any other piodnct to catch up this one, which at present fe "firpt, and the. rest, nowhere," in the r»ce On the other hand, it i? noteworthy that the wool export For the yetiV is iess by £63/228 than that of the previov/s year ; whereas the output of gr*in/s lareer by £399,166, of flour by £98,(85, of frozen meat by L 191.056, of p/tter by L65,72\ and of flax by LBCV729. I* * s an impressive illustration/of the magnitude of the rabbit pest thffthe export of rabbit skin? ieached a value of very nearly Ll oo,ooo, while ev/n this wns consi<lerahly less than in the preceding year. It is satisfactory, U view of the depressed state of the d>ld mining industry, tonotioethat there i«an increase, although a small one,in the v »!d of gold. There is ono industry which Aickland has all to itself— kauri gum d ?ging-- -nncl the return for the year gve'k a fair idea of its substantial local vilue The export of kauri gum onovmte^ to £807,810, which is more ,t ;in half the value of the frozen meat ei«>ort for the whole Colony ; nearly half \)\nh of the ,?rain export for the entire polony, and im re than double the total flnx export even afc\be improved prices of the latter. We ire porry to see that tbire is a falling off in this item to the extent of nearly £10,000 as compart d with the resilts of the year before ' The increase of josi v npon half a million PtHing in the exp\rt of grain and its milled products — an increase of more than 100 per cent, bringing up the total to nearly a million string for the year — gives some idea of tie benefits which our farmers must altealy have reaped from the improved prices if corn. Frozen meat h«s mndfe a further inward stride of £191,000, and now represents more than two-thirds of a millioi sterling in our export list. Timber, hiilg, leathei, hop>, potatoes, grass seed,* coal, and miscellaneous produce all displn? material increases. But, as might hav'ebeen expected from the recent, extraordinary expansion of the tra<lp and of priog, flax gives the most surprising Ptatistirs- of n \\ in the way of inciease. The year^ flnx export « as £112,190; that of the year before was only £31.461. Heie 15 a jump not far short of 300 per cent in< a Bingle year!. Another striking feature in the year"s tofal exports is the sudAen spring of rearly a millvon svml a quarter ahove the pn'vioufi year, whereas tllp bitter was only £100.000 b'tter ihm\ the year befoie, -which 'again was bntN •i'2ou,ooo in advance of its predecessor. Fmther, th'« imports^ which' in 1885 6 exceeiled, the .exports by half a million, were in 1 88«-9 exceeded by' the ' exports to theextent'of^S^Op/LbS. iinairine".) tluit specie 'has been "'heavi'y exported "ro "p'jiy .our debts'. This is a crinpleteSnlsapprehension. Tlie specie giMit awny amounted 10 £332,(100, hul £361,000 worth was imported,-' so the bttlauoe is in the Colony's> favour.