Statistics of Van Diemens Laiid. 117 



reduction in tlie price of grain below a point to remunerate 

 shippers. 



Table 29 is a return oftlie number and tonnage of vessels 

 that have arrived at and left our ports during the year. The 

 ships inwards show an increase upon 1847 of 5 per cent, in 

 number, and h\ per cent, in tonnage ; and the ships that 

 cleared outwards also show an increase of 11 per cent, in 

 number, and 1 1 \ per cent, in tonnage. Slight as this increase 

 is, it is the more satisfactory viewed in relation to the 

 diminished exports and imports of the year ; pointing to the 

 conclusion that the decline is in value only, not in quantity, 

 and that the commerce of the Colony is in an essentially 

 sound and progressive condition. 



Table 30 affords most valuable evidence of the increase to 

 the material wealth of the Colony. Twenty-nine vessels of 

 various tonnage, from 20 to 300, have been built in our 

 ports during the past year ; and several more ships of still 

 larger burthen are now in progress, giving employment to 

 many hundred mechanics and labourers, and tending to the 

 formation of industrious and moral habits. The whale 

 fisheries appear also by the same return to continue highly 

 productive. A fleet of 29 vessels, of 6081 tons, was 

 employed whaling during 1848; and the value of the pro- 

 duce has increased from ^970,000 to ^104,000, being an 

 increase of 48| per cent, upon the previous year.* No one 

 can regard the progress in this branch of commerce with an 

 uninterested eye, fraught as it is with so much consequence 

 to the advancement of the community, creating wealth from 

 the illimitable resources of the Ocean, as well as providing 



* Under Table 28 the exports of oil and whalebone are stated to have 

 declined considerably in 1848: the discrepancy may probably be explained 

 by supposing that a great proportion of the oil taken was not exported to 

 London until the early part of the year 1849. 



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