TWENTY YEARS' PROGRESS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 167, 19 July 1904, Page 2

TWENTY YEARS' PROGRESS.

In tables 10 to 14, attached to the Budget Statement this year, a numIxt of interesting statistics are presented dealing wuth the population, trade and slapping of New Zealand at the three decennial periods, 1883, 1803, and 1903. The population figures are 510,877, 672,205, and 332505 respectively, showing a steady progress ;■ but it is when we come to the figures relating to imports and ■exports that we realise how great have'been the advances made in the two decades. In 1883 the total of our imports ami exports was £.15,070,037 ; ten years later this had grown to £15,890,879; last year it reached tlte great total of £22,799,053, or an increase, of 71.87 per cent over 1893. lly separating the import from the export trade, we lind lluit a vivid light is; tin own upon the recovery of the colony from its previous period of depression. The purchasing power of the people had sunk so low in 1893 that the imports amounted to only £0,911,513, or 13. 32 per cent, less than they wen in 1883 ; but as the result of the Impetus given to laud settlement and production the imports have gone up until last year they stood at £12,788.075. The value of our exports has also advanced by leaps and bounds during the Inst decade —the figures for 1903 being £15,010,378. Thus, while population during the [last ten years incteased by only 23. 84 per cent., the imports increased by 85.03 and the exports by 07.05 percent, respectively in the same period.