WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



The following table shows the growth of the 



CPniVTH f re i n trade of the port, as measured 



OF TRADF ^7 the entrances and clearances of 



vessels from or to foreign or colonial 



ports 697 at intervals of five years : 



FOREIGN TRADE : ENTRANCES AND CLEARANCES, 

 1835-1906 



Two periods only show an actual decline in this 

 table. The first is the quinquennium 1860-65, the 

 period of the American Civil War, when the blockade 

 of the southern ports caused the Lancashire cotton 

 famine and for a brief time brought about a revival, 

 in blockade-running expeditions, of the adventurous 

 spirit of the age of privateering. 499 The other is the 

 quinquennium 1890-95, a period of general bad 

 trade. The periods of most rapid growth are those 

 from 1850 to 1860, from 1865 to 1880, and again 

 from 1900 onwards. The period from 1880 to 1900 

 is one in which Liverpool was feeling for the first 

 time seriously the competition of the European 

 nations which from 1815 to 1870 had left to Eng- 

 land almost a monopoly of oversea trade. This 

 competition may be said to have begun about 1870, 

 and though the gross increase since that date has 

 been twice as great as the increase in the preceding 

 period of the same length, its effects have been shown 

 in a tendency to more violent fluctuation, which will 

 perhaps better be illustrated by the value of imports 

 and exports than by the record of the actual sailings 

 of vessels that might be either full or empty. 



TABLE OF IMPORTS AND EXPORTS, 1875-1906 



LIVERPOOL 



Space does not permit of any detailed analysis of 

 the character and direction of Liverpool trade during 

 this period, but some idea of its principal features may 

 be derived from the following summary of the ten 

 leading articles of import and the ten leading articles 

 of export, with their approximate value, as in the year 

 1906 : 



A further striking feature of the first table above, 

 which indicates a characteristic of Liverpool's de- 

 velopment, is the fact that, especially from 1850 

 onwards, the number of vessels employed tends to 

 increase slowly, or even to diminish, while the 

 tonnage rapidly grows. Thus in 1906 almost the 

 same number of vessels entered and cleared as in 

 1835, but their tonnage is ten times as great. This 

 remarkable increase of the tonnage of vessels is due 

 above all to the replacement of sailing vessels by 

 steamships, and to the increasing employment of 

 large ' liners ' sailing at regular intervals in place of 

 the irregular sailings of an earlier period. The .first 

 regular liners begin with the institution of the Cunard 

 line in 1842. The figures of the shipping registered 

 in the port of Liverpool since 1850 bring out this 

 point still more clearly. 



SHIPPING REGISTERED IN LIVERPOOL 



Though steamboats had appeared in the Mersey as 

 early as 1815, they were for long used purely for 



W The figures for coasting trade are 

 omitted. This table is compiled from the 

 Annual Reports on Trade and on Shipping 



and Navigation laid before the Houses of 

 Parliament. 



37 



698 Including transports for the South 

 African War. 



699 Running the Blockade. 



