346 



COMMERCE. 



Hudson's bay companies, the Enst India company 

 ;([. v.) and the Borneo, Solo, and Bnnca com] 'any 

 (Cor working the gold and diamond mines of Borneo, 

 pursuing the pearl fisheries at Solo and Banca, and 

 working the tin mines on the last-named island). The 

 chief exports of Great Britain are, to the north of 

 Europe, cotton, woo lien, and glass, hard ware, pottery, 

 lead, tin, coal, East India and colonial wares, dye- 

 stuffs, salt, and refined sugar. In return, Great Britain 

 receives from the nort li , cc >rn , flax, hemp, iron, tur| >t n- 

 tine, tar, tallow, tiinl>er, linen, pearl and pot-ashes, 

 cordage and hog's bristles. To Germany, Holland, 

 France, Itiily, Spain, and Portugal, it exports cotton 

 ami woollen fabrics, cutlery, dried and salt fish, pot- 

 tery and glass \vaiv. colonial and East India goods. 

 ami all kinds of Uie finer manufactures. From G-r- 

 many it imports corn, flax, hemp, linen cloth, and 

 thread, rags, hides, timber, and wine; from Holland, 

 flax, hemp, madder, gin, cheese, butter, rags, and 

 seeds ; from France, wine, brandy, lace, cambric, 

 silk, ornaments, and fdncy goods and fruit; from 

 Italy, Spain, and Portugal, silk, wool, barilla, sul 

 phnr, sak, oil, fruit, wine, brandy, and cork. To 

 Turkey it sends cotton and woollen goods, hardware, 

 colonial and East India goods, lead, tin, iron, clocks, 

 and watches ; receiving, in return, coffee, silk, fruits, 

 fine oil, dye-stuffs, carpets, &c. To North America 

 it sends woollen and cotton manufactures, hardware, 

 linen, glass, and other wares; the imports from 

 thence are flour, cotton, rice, tar, pitch, pot and 

 ]>earl ashes, provisions, ship-timber, &c. The chief 

 imports from South America are cotton, hides, skins, 

 tallow, cochineal, dye-wood, sugar, indigo, cocoa, 

 gums, &c. ; and the exports from England are the 

 same as above mentioned. The same exports are 

 likewise sent to the West Indies ; and in return, 

 Great Britain receives rum, coffee, tobacco, sugar, 

 ginger, pimento, pepper, indigo, dye-stuffs, drugs, 

 gums, cotton, mahogany, Campeachy wood, &c. 

 To the East Indies, China, and Persia, it sends wool- 

 len goods, iron, copper, lead, tin, foreign silver mo- 

 ney, gold and silver, in bars, hardware, and a variety 

 of manufactures (amounting, in 1828, to .4,877,125) ; 

 for which it obtains muslins, calicoes, silks, nankeens, 

 tea, spices, arrack, sugar, coffee, rice, saltpetre, indi- 

 go, opium, drugs, gums, quicksilver, precious stones, 

 pearls, &c., amounting, in 1828, to .8,002,786. To 

 the colony of New South Wales, the common English 

 manufactures and colonial goods are exported and 

 exchanged for train-oil, seal-skins, wool, &c. 



Among themselves, the three British kingdoms 

 trade in the following commodities. From Scotland, 

 England and Ireland receive corn, cattle, woollen 

 and cotton goods, potash, granite, canvass, and iron 

 manufactures ; the Scottish fisheries also furnish an 

 important article of commerce. For these things, 

 Scotland receives the productions of Ireland, and 

 articles of luxury, of all kinds, from England. Ire- 

 land buys of England and Scotland, woollen, cotton, 

 and silk goods, East and West India goods, pottery, 

 hardware, and salt : and in exchange, gives its linen, 

 hides, potatoes, and other provisions, &c. The for- 

 eign commerce of Ireland is, besides, very extensive. 

 It exports its productions and manufactures to France, 

 Spain, Portugal, the West Indies, and North Ameri- 

 ca, for wine, fruit, sugar, rum, &c. The commer- 

 cial intercourse between Ireland and the north of 

 Europe is mainly through England, and its trade 

 with the East passes exclusively through the same 

 channel. The chief articles of export from Ireland 

 are linen, potatoes, and other provisions, corn, whis- 

 key, herrings, and salmon. 



The foreign possessions, settlements, and colonies 

 of Great Britain, of which it possessed twenty-six 

 prior to the French revolution, and has gained seven- 



teen more by conquest, nre Heligoland, Gibraltar, 

 and Malta, with Gozo and the Ionian isles, in Europe ; 

 its possessions in India, under the administration of 

 the K;:st India company, and Ceylon, in Asia ; the 

 Isle de France, or Mauritius, with the Sechelles and 

 Amirante isles, the Cape of Good Hope, Sierra 

 Leone, Cape Coast, and Annaboa, the islands of As- 

 cension and St Helena, in Africa; Canada, New 

 Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, St John's, or 

 Prince Edward's island, Newfoundland, Hud>nu's 

 bay, and the bay of Honduras, in North America ; 

 Berbice, Essequibo, and Demerara, in South Ameri- 

 ca ; Jamaica, Barbadocs, Antigua, St Vincent, St 

 Christopher, Nevis, Montferrat, the Virgin islands, 

 Grenada, Tobago, Dominica, Trinidad, and the Ba- 

 hamas, in the West Indies ; also the Bermudas ; in 

 Australia (q. v.), New South Wales, Van Diemen's 

 Land, and the colony on New Zealand, and on Mel- 

 ville's island. From all these places does Britain 

 draw many of her comforts and luxuries. " It is 

 difficult," says Mr Macculloch, in his Dictionary of 

 Commerce, " for those who have not reflected on the 

 subject, to imagine what a vast deduction would be 

 made, not only from the comforts, but even from the 

 necessaries, of every commercial people, were its in- 

 tercourse with strangers put an end to. It is not, 

 perhaps, too much to say that in Great Britain we 

 owe to our intercourse with others a full half or 

 more of all that we enjoy. We are not only indebt- 

 ed to it for the cotton and silk manufactures, and 

 for supplies of wine, tea, coffee, sugar, the precious 

 metals, &c. ; but we are also indebted to it for most 

 of the fruits and vegetables that we now cultivate. 

 At the same time, too, that foreign commerce sup- 

 plies us with an immense variety of most important 

 articles, of which we must otherwise have been 

 wholly ignorant ; it enables us to employ our in- 

 dustry in the mode in which it is sure to be most 

 productive, and reduces the price of almost every 

 article. We do not misemploy our labour in raising 

 sugar from the beet-root, in cultivating tobacco, or ir. 

 forcing vines ; but we employ ourselves in those de- 

 partments of manufacturing industry in which our 

 command of coal, of capital, and of improved ma- 

 chinery, give us an advantage ; and obtain the articles 

 produced more cheaply by foreigners, in exchange 

 for the surplus produce of those branches in which 

 we have a superiority over them. A commercial 

 nation like England avails herself of all the peculiar 

 facilities of production given by Providence to differ- 

 ent countries. To produce claret here is perhaps 

 impossible ; and at all events it could not be accom- 

 plished, unless at more then a hundred times the ex- 

 pense required for its production in France. We do 

 not, however, deny ourselves the gratification deriv- 

 able from its use ; and to obtain it, we have only to 

 send to France, or to some country indebted to 

 France, some article in the production of which we 

 have an advantage, and we get claret in exchange 

 at the price which it takes to raise it under the most 

 favourable circumstances. One country has peculiar 

 capacities for raising corn, but is at the same time 

 destitute of wine, silk, and tea. Another, again, lias 

 peculiar facilities for raising the latter,, but it is 

 destitute of the former; and it is impossible to 

 point out a single country which is abundantly sup- 

 plied with any considerable variety of commodities 

 of domestic growth. Ncn omnis fert omnia tellus. 

 Providence, Toy giving to each particular nation 

 something which the others want, has evidently 

 intended that they should be mutually dependent 

 upon one another." The following table shows 

 the consumption of articles of foreign and co- 

 lonial produce in Great Britain, from 1820 to 

 1831 : 



