forts of civilisation, and we rouse to industry and give employment to millions of human beings who would otherwise stagnate or starve. But, more valuable than all the rest, we export men also-our own countrymen. Led by the potent agency of self-interest, they invade the solitudes and attack the barbarism of the world,-peopling with a higher race the waste places, and, as conquerors or masters, leading the natives of other countries into a higher life than they could have reached of themselves. A new race has repeopled America, a new population has grown up in Australia,-as lords of India, we are rejuvenating the effete world of the East, a kindred destiny awaits the gigantic empire of China,-and soon Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and the African shores of the Mediterranean will likewise come under European tutelage. Where commerce goes, influence follows. And our commerce overspreads the world like a rising flood, whose outer edges indeed are gross with sand, and whose waves as they advance sweep away much and devastate not a little, but which enrich the soil and produce new and better forms of fertility, making the world more beautiful and man more happy. In the old theology of Persia, the disciples of the Good Spirit, Ormuzd, were bound to wage ceaseless war with the works of the evil Ahriman, not only by crusading against alien religions, but by warring against all that obstructs the beauty and fertility of the earth. To keep clear and pure the watercourses, to plant fruit-trees, to extirpate weeds, to extend cultivation -these were parts of that old religion, and were regarded as not the least worthy service which man could render to his Maker. We no longer call such acts religion; yet is it not a carrying out of the beneficent work of Providence in the world-a work which is left to human hands to accomplish-which must be done by man or not at all? And thus trade and commerce have a religion of a very practical kindinvisible in and unfelt by their votaries, yet appearing in the result of their labours, and aiding most powerfully the onward progress of the world. We are pre-eminently a trading nation, and the dry figures of the Board of Trade returns are the index of our commercial prosperity. They are the most palpable sign of our material greatness. Like the Nilometer, which has stood for ages in Egypt, recording upon its column the height of the annual inundation which regulates the prosperity of the land of Misraim, these returns show the ebb and flow of trade which regulate the profits of our merchants and the employment of our people. The ebbs shown in the returns mark the bad years, while the increase is a sure sign of present comfort and prosperity. Happily the ebbs are but occasional, while the increase in the main is steady and astonishingly great. It is marvellous to mark the increase of our trade of late years, especially from the time when the discovery of the gold-mines of California and Australia added new and immense supplies to the metallic currency of the world. We have resolved to eschew tables of figures, but in this case we make an exception. The subjoined column represents the Nilometer of the British Isles, and records upon its face the steady rise, with occasional ebbs, of the stream of trade which annually enriches our country. The exports and imports are given in round numbers, and the figures represent millions sterling : 1857 122 309,910,500 188 1856 116 288,371,100 172 1855 95 239,230,900 143) 1854 97 249,573,700 152 1853 99 257,210,300 158* 1852 78 218,692,300 140 1851 74 216,745,300 142 1850 71 200,502,700 129 1849 63 199,741,400 136 1848 53 173,086,500 120 1847 59 175,744,300 117 1846 57 155,417,100 97 1845 60 173,636,400 113 1844 58 155,540,900 97 1843 52 142,482,780 90 1842 47 131,182,200 84 1841 51 133,404,100 83 1840 51 138,085,000 86 This year our exports are likely to amount to 160 millions sterling, and our imports to 280. Between 1839 and 1849 our trade increased rather more than 25 per cent; but in the next ten years, aided by the gold-discoveries, it increased 100 per cent. During the last twentyfive years our trade has trebled in amount, the exports having risen from 52 millions to 160 millions, and our imports from 86 millions to about 280. So rapid an increase is en unparalleled in the annals of commerce. The increase of our national wealth arises in the main from three different sources. It arises (1) from an increase in the produce of the soil and the rocks (of grain, animals, weaving materials, and fruits, and of coal, iron, and other metals), or from a diminution in the cost of production thereof; (2) from an increase in the amount of goods which we manufacture and export, or in a diminished cost in the manufacture of them; and (3) from a profitable investment of our spare capital in the construction of railways and suchlike terprises abroad. The Economist' reckons that our annual savings amount to £130,000,000, and the lowest computation is £80,000,000. It is impossible to conjecture the total income of the country; but the contribution made to it by the profits on our foreign trade are rapidly on the increase. It is true, the returns of our export trade do not indicate with perfect accuracy the amount of profits arising from it. There may be over-production, causing a glut in the foreign markets, and consequently a fall of prices, and less profit to our exporting merchants. Such was the case in 1860, but, by good-luck, it was quickly righted by the sudden dearth of cotton goods which followed. It is also to be noted, that during the last two and a half years, the profits of our exporting manufacturers have not been in the same proportion to the value of goods exported as formerly. The great increase in the cost of the raw materials must be taken into account. It is only upon the manufacture of these materials that we derive a Previous to 1854, the official returns of the value of our Imports are of no use as showing their real value; for the scale of prices by which the official value was determined was fixed so far back as 1698, and has long ceased to represent the true value of the articles. But the official value serves to show the fluctuations in quantity. And as for several years after 1854, both the "official" and the "real" value of the Imports were published, we are enabled to observe the difference between these (the real value being about 2-7ths greater than the official); and by applying this ratio to the returns for the fourteen years previous to 1854, we have presented (in the prefixed table) our Imports for these years at their real value, or at least at an approximation to it sufficiently correct for our purpose. profit; and as the declared value of our exports includes the cost of the raw material, as well as the cost and profit of manufacture, it is obvious that when the raw material rises in price, the proportion of our profit to the total value of the goods exported will be reduced. Cotton is now fully treble the price it was in 1860; so that, although the value of exported cotton goods last year was only 10 per cent less than in 1860, the diminution in the profits of our manufacturers will greatly exceed this proportion. The quantity of the goods exported is a better criterion of the profits of our manufacturers than the value of the goods, the value being largely affected by fluctuations in the cost of the raw material. It is the quantity of their manufacture (in other words, the amount of work which they get to do) that chiefly regulates the profits of the millowners; and, we need hardly say, it is likewise the quantity of our manufactures which indicates the amount of employment furnished to our people. Although the value of cotton exports this year promises even to exceed that of 1860, neither the profits of our manufacturers, nor the amount of employment for our operatives, will be nearly so great as they were four years ago. Let us analyse the Board of Trade returns, and show in detail of what our traffic with foreign countries consists. The Imports are what we buy, the Exports are what we sell. Of the 249 millions' worth of goods which we imported last year, twofifths (103 millions) consisted of materials for our manufactures: of which amount fully one-half con'sisted of cotton, and rather less than one-half of wool, silk, flax and hemp, hides, oil and tallow, metals, indigo, and saltpetre. The other great branch of our imports consists of food and stimulants, or luxuries, for the subsistence of our people, and forms nearly one-third (75 mil lions) of our whole imports. Of this amount one-half consists of the necessaries of life-grain and flour, bacon, butter, cheese, and rice; the other half of what may be called luxuries-sugar, tea, coffee, wine and spirits, tobacco and fruit. The remaining portion of our imports consists of wood, for house and ship building and furniture, manufactured articles of dress, &c. We import twice as much cotton as corn, and twice as much corn as wool. Next, as to Exports. Of the 146 millions' worth of goods which we sold to other countries last year, fully two-thirds (100 millions) consisted of articles manufactured by us out of foreign materials-the cotton goods alone amounting in value to 47 millions; and less than one-third of materials of our own production (raw or manufactured), chiefly metals and coal. Cotton goods form the largest portion of our exports, and next to them metals and metal goods, the former constituting one-third, and the latter one-fourth, of the whole of our exports. We export twice as much cotton as woollen goods, and twice as much woollen as linen. The total value of the metals and metal goods exported last year was 33 millions, but we cannot claim all this as the produce of our own materials, seeing that we imported four millions' worth of metals (chiefly copper) from other countries. It is also to be observed that while we import about 90 millions' worth of cotton, wool, silk, flax, hemp, and hides, we only export articles manufactured from these materials to an equal value and as the value of the manufactured article may (even with the present high prices of the raw material) be stated at almost double that of the raw material, we may infer that nearly one-half of these imports are consumed in the manufacture of clothing for our own people. If this be correct, about 40 millions' worth of the textile fabrics imported are required by us for clothing. Thus, in addition to the produce of our own country, we import 75 millions' worth of food, and 40 millions' worth of the raw materials of cloth ing, besides nearly 20 millions' worth of other goods, consisting of articles of dress and for household use, and wood for building and furniture:-in all, 135 millions' worth of foreign goods are consumed by us annually, simply in maintaining our present highly comfortable existence.* The two largest items in our imports-namely, cotton and corn -are also the most variable, alike as regards quantity and price. The variations of the one are due to natural, and of the other to political causes. The state of the wea ther, the favourable or unfavourable nature of the season, determines whether our harvest is a good or bad one; and the difference in value between a very good and a very bad harvest is at least twenty millions sterling. In other words, in a very bad year we have to buy of our neighbours twenty millions more corn than when our harvest is decidedly good. This makes an enormous difference in the national balance-sheet. The outlay of the farmer is the same in a bad year as in a good one; the expenses of cultivation are a fixed The following is a list of the chief articles imported and exported by us in 1863, arranged under descriptive heads : charge, but the return depends on the skies and the weather. A fine summer is worth twenty millions in hard cash to this country, besides the many other less direct benefits which it brings. Father Sol is a very potent deity, whose favours we cannot afford to slight. His rays are a veritable shower of gold. He is fickle, it is true, though not quite so fickle as of yore; and we may hope for some slight improvement still, when by draining and planting or clearing we have rendered our Isles a more pleasant spot for him to look upon. Of late years the variations in the amount of corn imported have been unusually great. In 1859 the amount imported was not quite £18,000,000; in the two following years it rose to 31 and 34 millions; in 1862 to 37 millions, more than double what it was in '59; last year it was £26,000,000, and this year it promises to be as much. The variations in the import of cotton during the same years have been still more remarkable. Indeed the changes connected with the late cotton crisis are the most astounding of their kind that could well be imagined. A civil war in America suddenly sealed up the region from which we derived fivesixths of our supply of cotton; by far the most important branch of our manufacturing industry was smitten with paralysis; a large portion of the clothing of mankind 1860. Quantity imported, cwts., 12,419,096 Price, From United States, From other countries, became suddenly very scarce and dear; and a great alteration took place in the channels of commerce. The old cotton fields being blocked up, new areas of cultivation were opened. Instead of drawing our supplies from, and sending our money to, the West, we have been drawing our cotton from, and sending our money to, the East. India, Egypt, and Turkey are now fertilised by the golden stream which previously poured into the United States. We need not speak of the manner in which the great calamity of the cotton famine has been borne by this country. We need not describe the admirable patience of the suffering operatives, nor the magnificent charity displayed by the nation at large on their behalf. But it may truly be said that the manner in which the calamity has been met and surmounted has astonished even ourselves. A branch of industry which employs half-amillion of operatives, and whose products constitute one-third of our export trade, was suddenly paralysed; yet the general prosperity of the country hardly experienced a check, and already our export trade is rushing ahead again at its former rate of increase. Let any one study the following brief statistics of our cotton trade during the last four years, and he will discern how vast have been the changes produced by the blockade of the American ports : 1861. 11,223,078 1862. 4,678,333 1863. 5,973,422 £35,756,889 £38,453,398 £31,093,045 £56,277,953 £30,069,306 £26,570,399 £1,221,277 £644,138 5,687,583 12,082,999 29,871,768 55,633,815 the 5 which it sent in 1860. Another change which is strikingly shown in the above figures is that of price. Although the quantity of cotton imported fell from 12 million cwts. in 1860 to only 4 in 1862, the price which we paid for cotton in the latter year was almost as great as in the former. And last year, although the quantity imported was less than one-half what we The startling change in the channels of commerce is here visible at a glance. In 1860, the United States sent us five-sixths of our supply of cotton, and now they send us next to none-only onesixtieth of their former amount. On the other hand, the rest of the world has increased its rate of supply tenfold-sending us 55 millions worth of cotton, in place of |