810 EEPOET — 1887. 



1880-84, the receipts per head were 21s. 2d. The rate of prowth shown in the first 

 ten years' interval is 63 per cent. ; in the second ten years' interval it is only 18 per 

 cent. ; and in the last year or two, I may add, there has been no further improve- 

 ment. Here the question of the value of money comes in again, but this would 

 only partially modify the apparent change. There is also a question as to railway 

 extension having been greater in the eai-lier than in the later period, so that growth 

 took place in the earlier period because there were railways in many districts 

 where they had not been before, and there was no room for a similar expansion in 

 the later period. But the difference in the rate of growth it will be observed is 

 very great indeed, and this explanation seems hardly adequate to account for all the 

 dili'erence. At any rate, to repeat a remark already made, the indications are no 

 longer so simple as they were. There is something to be explained. 



The figures as to the number of tons of goods carried are not in the above 

 table; nor are such figures very good, so long as they are not reduced to show 

 the number of tons conveyed one mile. But, quantum valeant, they may be 

 quoted from the Board of Trade tables already referred to. The increase, then, 

 in minerals conveyed between 1855 and 1865 is from about 40 million to nearly 80 

 million tons, or 100 per cent. ; between 1865 and 1875 it is from 80 to about 140 

 million tons, or 75 per cent. ; and in the last ten years it is from 140 to 190 million 

 tons only, if quite so much, or about 36 per cent. only. As regards general 

 merchandise, again, the progression in the three ten-yearly periods is in the first 

 from about 24 to 37 million tons, or rather more than 50 per cent. ; in the second 

 from 37 to 63 million tons, or 70 per cent. ; and in the third from 63 to 73 million 

 tons, or 16 per cent. only. As far as they go there is certainly nothing in these 

 figures to oppose the indications of a falling-oft' in the rate of increase of general 

 business already cited. 



Coming to the movement of shipping in the foreign trade the series of figures 

 we obtain are the following, which relate to clearances only, those relating to 

 entries being of course little more than duplicate, so that thej^ need not be 

 repeated: 1855, 10 million tons; 1865, 15 million tons; 1875, 24 million tons; 

 1885, 32 million tons. And the rate of growth thus shown is between 1855 and 

 1865 no less than 50 per cent. ; between 1865 and 1875 no less than 60 per cent. ; 

 and between 1875 and 1885 about 33 per cent, only — again a less rate of increase 

 in the last ten years than in the period just before. Here, too, it is to be noticed, 

 what is unusual in shipping industry, that in the last few years the entries and 

 clearances in the foreign trade have been practically stationary. The explanation 

 no doubt is in part the great multiplication of lines of steamers up to a compara- 

 tively recent period, causing a remarkable growth of the movement while the 

 multiplication of lines was itself in progress, and leaving room for less growth 

 afterwards because a new framework had been provided within which traffic could 

 grow. But here again it is to be remarked that the whole change can hardly, 

 perhaps, be explained in this manner, while the remark already made again applies, 

 that the fact of explanation being required is itself significant. 



The figures of imports and exports might be treated in a similar manner, as they 

 necessarily follow the course of the leading articles of production and the move- 

 ments of shipping. But we should only by so doing get the figures we have been 

 dealing with in another form, and repetition is of course to be avoided. 



The short table contains only another set of figures, viz. those of the consumption 

 of tea and sugar, which are again commonly appealed to as significant of general 

 material progress. What we find as regards tea is that the consumption per head 

 rises between 1855 and 1865 from 2-3 to 3-3 lbs., or 43 per cent. ; between 1865 and 

 1875 from 3-3 to 4-4 lbs., or 33 per cent. ; and between 1875 and 1885 from 4-4 to 

 6 lbs., or 13^ per cent. In sugar the progression is in the first period from 306 

 to 39'8 lbs. per head, or 30 per cent. ; in the .second period from 398 to 627 lbs., or 

 68 per cent. ; and in the third period from 627 to 74-3 lbs., or 19 per cent. only. 

 In the last ten years in both cases ihe rate of increase is less than in the twenty 

 years before. 



These facts, I need hardly say, would be strengthened by a reference to the 

 consumption of spirits and beer, the decline in the former being especially notorious. 



