The Colony’s Foreign Trade. 261 
ing rural emporiums. This latter is exemplitied more particularly in 
respect to the consumption, use and enjoyment of luxuries and decencies, 
the swell of whose volume has been marked in recent years, in spite of 
the rise in the price-level of commodities. 
During the past decade the curve of progress in respect of the 
colony's transactions is distinct though its level may not be high. The 
value of the imports—the purchasing-power index—has risen from 
$7,278,187* to $8,575,556, an increase of $1,237,369, or about 17 per 
cent. Meanwhile the value of the exports (the bulk of which is responsible 
for the imports) has risen from $8,782,796 to $10,429,275. Put in 
another way, we find the progress made on the respective values per 
head of the population of the imports and exports to be :— 
1902-03 1911-12. 
Inports ...$ 22.93 $ 28.96 
Exports...$ 28.96 $ 35.22 
The improvement thus disclosed in the colony’s commerce is reflected, 
as one would expect, in the revenue returns, which, showing a sum of 
$2,675,285 in 1902, were represented last year by a sum amounting to 
$2,848,795, an increase of more than 6 per cent. Such progress as ean 
be recorded is largely due to the improvement of our labour forces, and 
more particularly to their employment in those channels which are found 
to be most productive from the mere trade view-point. Though the 
progress made may not be deemed by some to be striking, it is appreciable, 
especially when account is taken of the fact that the population has 
actually declined during the period under review—from 302,172 to 296,041 
—and that the gold industry, whose activities used to contribute in so 
large and direct a manner to the commercial well-being, has, as measured 
by its production, declined to the extent of nearly 50 per cent. Again, 
the Index Number* has gone up ; the dollar does not go as far as it did ten 
* The official figures given are $6,931,605, but from 1903-04 the system has been 
adopted of adding a certain percentage to the original cost of each class of goods to cover 
the cost of freight, insurance and packages ou the goods, the object being to show the 
value of the goods when landed at the port of destination. This is the course followed 
in most British Colonies, and, with the view of securing uniformity of method, and because 
it is considered to be more correct than merely giving the original first cost of the goods, 
its adoption was recommended by a Committee which sat in London in 1891. When it is 
desired to make comparisons between the figures relating to imports prior to 1903 and 
those after that date, it will be necessary to deduct from the figures of the later years or 
add to the figures of the previous years (as I have done in this case) that average rate of 
percentage (15 per cent.) representing, approximately, the total additions which have been 
made to the invoice or entry value of the goods imported to cover the charges of transit 
between the ports of shipment and entry. 
+ During the past ten years the Index Number in the United Kingdom has risen 
from 1948 to 2503. The method of Index Numbers is as follows:—A certain number of 
representative commodities are chosen, and the prices of these for a certain year or series 
of years being taken as a basis, the price at the date at which the calculation is required 
is worked out toa percentage of the basis price ; these percentages are then combined to 
form a composite number representing the percentage change in price in the whole group 
of commodities. Thus if sugar had risen during the decade, say, 20 per cent., beef 30 per 
cent., cotton 24 per cent., and coal 26 per cent., it may be said that, taking these 
