8 Flux, Costs of Sea Transport in proportion to Values. 



are carried by the ships included in the summary, and 

 their inclusion would make some difference in the final 

 column of the table. 



There is something unsatisfactory, however, in dealing 

 with an aggregate of such a heterogeneous character as 

 that obtained by summing the trade of our various 

 colonies. We, therefore, proceed to particularise further, 

 and examine our trade with Australia and New Zealand. 

 We are here freed from complications arising from an 

 inclusion on one side of the account of home products 

 (or goods for home consumption) only, while the other 

 side includes goods in transit in addition to the former. 

 There appears, however, to be room for considerable error 

 yet, for we are informed that goods arriving (say) from 

 Japan in a British ship at Sydney and thence proceeding 

 to Melbourne are commonly entered as Japanese imports 

 in Sydney and again as British goods in Melbourne. 

 What the extent of error from this cause may be is quite 

 impossible to gauge. The import duties, again, may be 

 expected to act as a depressing cause of values of imports. 

 Changes in the pressure of Customs dues may vitiate 

 comparisons of one period with another. Export dues, 

 where levied, may also be expected to have an analogous 

 effect. The question of transhipped goods is a serious 

 one, for a value varying from about £600,000 per annum 

 to more than the double of this is transhipped in this 

 country for Australasia, and may be included in the goods 

 there recorded as imported from the United Kingdom. 

 The following comparison omits these, but includes bullion 

 and specie. As to these transhipped goods, if we admit 

 them to the account, we shall, in several years, have a 

 result with Australasia analogous to that with America, 

 namely, goods going half way round the world without 

 gaining in value. 



