TEANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



823 



proportionate growth of the numbers employed in such miscellaneous industries, 

 and in what may be called incorporeal functions, that is, as teachers, artists, and 

 the lilie, prevents the increase of staple products continuing at the former rate. 

 This supposition, it will be found, has a good deal to support it in the actual facts 

 as to industry and population in recent years. 



The foreign trade shows some sign of the change that is going on. Looking 

 through the list of export articles some remarkable developments are to be noticed. 

 The following short table speaks for itself: — 



U.rjjo'iis of the midermentioned Articles in the Years stated, with the Rates of 

 Increase m 1855-65, 1865-75, and 1875-85 comjjared. 



Thus there are not a few articles, of which jute is a conspicuous example, in 

 which there has been an entirely new industry established within a comparatively 

 short period ; and, though the percentage of increase may not in all be so great 

 in the last ten years as in the previous ten just because the industry is so wholly 

 new, yet the amount of the increase is as great or greater. In other articles, such 

 as soap and British spirits, there is a new start in the last ten years after a decline 

 in the previous periods. Such cases as oil and tioor cloth, paper other than 

 hangings, and plate glass are also specially noticeable as practicallj' new trades. 

 The list I am satisfied could be considerably extended, but I am giving it mainly 

 by way of illustration. Finally, there is the item of other articles not separately 

 specified — an item which is always changing in the statistical abstract because 

 every few jears one or more articles grow into sufficient importance to require 

 separate mention, so that any extended comparison of this item for a long series 

 of years is impossible. Still it is ever growing, and what we find in the last ten 

 years is that, in spite of the fall of prices, the growth is from 9,700,000/. to 

 10,600,000/., or nearly 10 per cent. Many of the articles referred to, it is plain, 

 cannot run into much money, but the indications of a tendency are none the less 

 clear. What is happening in the foreign trade is happening, we may be sure, in 



' 1858 not separately stated before. 



- Decrease. 



