THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 808, 2 May 1871, Page 3

THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND.

The plethora of capital just now is exceedingly heavy, in consequence of the payment of the numerous dividends ot various kinds, and the total for the present month is upwards of £20,000,000, as thus :—Dividends on English Governmentstoeks,£6,7oo,ooo; Australian, Canadian, and Indian Government loans, £1,500,000 ; English railway debentures, £1,750,000 ; Foreign Government loans, £8,820,000; English Joint Stock banks, mining and miscellaneous shares, say £1,000,000. But there is no reason to believe that the total is under the amount we have stated, for it is well known that the amount paid on stocks and shares in the course of the year much exceeds the quadruple of the above sum. A clearer indication of the extraordinary wealth of this country is to be obtained by considering the amount of capital stock in which dealings take place on the London Stock Exchange. The following is an approximate estimate :—British Government Stock, £800,000,000 ; British Possessions and colonies, namely, India, Canada, and Australia, £180,000,000 ; French Government, £540,000,000 ; other European States, £600,000,000; South America, £68,000,000; North America, £430,000,000; Central America and West Indies, £34,000,000, together making a total so far as Government debts dealt in here of £1,850,000,000. There is besides our railway stocks of £550,600,000, banks, telegraphs, mines, and various miscellaneous shares, the total of which it is impossible to give in an approximate figure at this moment, but it is considerable. Necessarily all this wealth is not held in this country, but by far the greater portion is, and such investments are constantly increasing. During the past year £61,000,000 of loans were placed on this market, besides £17,000,000 for joint stock enterprise, and fresh creations are ready to come forward at the earliest possible period. They comprise:—Russian railway, £10,000,000; Spain, £6,000,000. It may here be observed that the estimated amount of surplus capital required to be invested annually in England is fully £200,000,000, of which one moiety is generally absorbed in the new loans and joint stock enterprise, the remaining half representing the risk in the value of land, house property, stocks and shares of every kind, and in the extension of commerce. Sufficient is thus shown to indicate not only the cause of the present abundance of money, but the wealth of the country and the course of its absorption. As a further illustration of the extent of our Stock Exchange transactions, the bankers' clearing for the twenty-four settling days in the past and two preceding years reached as follows : 1870 £634,914,000 1869 564,935,000 1868 523,349,000 Next as regards the extent of trade and commerce of the country, the bankers' clearings on the " fourth " of the month in each of the three past years gives the following total: — 1870 £176,137,000 1869 179,729,000 1868 165,068,000 But taking the whole range of the banker's clearings for last year, exclusive of the Stock Exchange settlements, we reach a sum of £3,279,376,000 banking business alone. The total for 1869 was £3,061,451,000.