OF INDUSTRIES. 67 



Mr. Giffen had to acknowledge that the prices 

 of 1883 were so low in comparison with those 

 of 1873 that in order to reach the same money 

 value the United Kingdom would have had to 

 export four pieces of cotton instead of three, 

 and eight or ten tons of metallic goods instead 

 of six. " The aggregate of British foreign trade, 

 if valued at the prices of ten years previously, 

 would have amounted to 861,000,000 instead of 

 667,000,000," we were told by no less an 

 authority than the Commission on Trade De- 

 pression. 



It might, however, be said that 1873 was an 

 exceptional year, owing to the inflated demand 

 which took place after the Franco-German war. 

 But the same downward movement continued for 

 a number of years. Thus, if we take the figures 

 given in the Statesman's Year-book, we see that 

 while the United Kingdom exported, in 1883, 

 4,957,000,000 yards of Apiece goods (cotton, 

 woollen and linen) and 316,000,000 Ib. of yarn in 

 order to reach an export value of 104,000,000, 

 the same country had to export, in 1895, no less 

 than 5,478,000,000 yards of the same stuffs and 

 330,000,000 Ib. of yarn in order to realise 

 99,700,000 only. And the figures would have 

 appeared still more unfavourable if we took 

 the cottons alone. True, the conditions im- 

 proved during the last ten years, so that in 



