STATISTICS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. 



461 



Taking the average of ten years (18G8 — 78), the imports j-j/ms exports of France only 

 amount to £9 7s., those of Germany to £6 8s., and those of the United States to 

 £5 a head of the total population. 



The kindred nation of the United States is that with which Great Britain 

 carries on the most extensive commerce. France ranks next, then follow 

 German}', British India, Australia, Holland, Prussia, Belgium, British North 

 America, and China. But if we arrange the foreign and colonial customers of 

 England according to the value of British and Irish produce received by each, they 

 rank in the following order : — United States, British India, Germany, Australia, 

 France, Holland, Russia, Turkey, Cape Colony and Natal, Brazil, British North 

 America, Belgium, and Italy.* There is not a maritime country in existence but 



its ports are frequented by British vessels, and London and Liverpool are to 

 many amongst them the great links which attach them to the rest of the world. 



As a great manufacturing country, England draws from abroad not only a 

 considerable proiaortion of the raw materials used in its factories, but also a 

 large share of the food consumed by its closely packed population. Cotton, wool, 

 flax and hemp, corn, live animals, and provisions of every description ; timber ; and, 

 amongst manufactured articles, silks and woollens, figure most prominently in 

 the imports. Foremost amongst the exports are cottons, woollens, iron and 

 steel, coal, machinery, linen, and manufactured goods of every kind. The customs 

 revenue, almost exclusively levied upon tea, coffee, spirits, wine, and tobacco, yields 

 annually about £20,000,000, and nearly one-half of it is collected in London. 



* For more detailed information see Appendix, pp. 498, 499. 



