178 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



annual excess of imports of merchandise into the United Kingdom 

 reached as high as £180,000,000, but the greatest excess of 

 imports of gold did not reach £15,000,000, while the excess of 

 export of gold reached only as much as £5,500,000. In the case 

 of the United States the excess of exports of merchandise during 



years 1878-1902 reached as much as £137,000,000, but the 

 greatest excess of imports of gold was less than £21,000,000. 

 and the greatest excess of exports was only £17,500,000. Ger- 

 many's excess of imports was in 1898 over £66,000,000, but 

 during the years 1884-1902 the greatest excess of imports of gold 

 was less than £12,000,000, and gold was only exported in excess 

 once, and that to the extent of less than £750,000. During the 

 same years the excess of imports to France reached just on 

 £48,000,000 ; the corresponding figure for gold is only slightly 

 over £15,000,000, and the greatest excess of export of gold was 

 only £6,500,000. 



For the benefit of those who have any lingering suspicion 

 that imports and exports, or the differences between them, are 

 paid for in gold, we may repeat some of these facts. During 

 the years considered for the several countries the annual excess 

 of imports of merchandise into the United Kingdom readied 

 £180,000,000, but her excess of export of gold was never as much 

 as £5,500,000 ; the excess of exports of merchandise from the 

 United States reached £137.000,000, but she never imported in 

 one year an excess of gold as much as £21,000,000 ; Germany 

 imported an excess ol merchandise of over £66,000,000 in one 

 year, and in only one year of the nineteen did she export any 

 excess of gold at all. and that only to the extent of a fraction of 

 a million ; lastly, France, with an excess of imports reaching 



ily £48,000,000 in 1891, sent out an excess of gold only 

 reaching at most in one year £6.500,000. 



Hut not only does the excess of import or export of gold iii 

 any year not hear comparison with the excesses that we generally 

 have of merchandise, hut if is to be further noted that the graphs 



resenting the gold balances, unlike those representing the 

 balances of merchandise, fluctuate generally about the base 

 line: one time there i i of imports, at another an excess 



of exports, according to the fluctuations of trade. If. then, we 

 take the totals for a. number of years hack, instead of the separate 

 annual returns, we shall find the excess of imports or export 

 gold bearing a much more insignificant proportion to the corre- 



mding figures for merchandise, the excesses of imports and 



lOrts of gold in different years to a certain extent balancing 

 ither. The excess of imports of merchandise Eor ii 

 to the United Kingdom, luring the period 1858 1902, was 

 £3,984,000,000, and, instead of there being an excess of exporl 



