The volume of imports, so far as it can be judged on the basis of these official values, remained about steady from 18o5 to 1822. doubled in the next 15 years and again about doubled in the fol lowing 15 years (up to 1853). The official values of British exports in this period have little significance beyond illustrating, by com parison with the real values, the enormous decline in the prices of our exports, due partly to the general fall in prices and partly to the effects of the development of the factory system in cheapen ing manufacturing costs. While, as shown above, the real value in 18o5 was over 6o% above the official value, by 1840 the real value was only half the official value; in other words export prices in 1840 were, on average, less than one-third of what they had been 35 years earlier. The real value of domestic exports was £36,966,000 in 1822, £47,381,000 as late as 1842 and then increased rapidly to in 1853. The following table shows the real value of the domestic exports, and of the retained imports (i.e., total imports less re-exports) in annual averages from 1855 to 1913, together with the population: period 1871-80. Thereafter there was a set-back and prog] was not resumed till the beginning of the present century. the annual average of the years 1910-13, the imports and expo per head had increased to $39.
But while the external trade per head of population has b comparatively small, the aggregate value of the trade has creased enormously, owing to the rapid rate of the growth population. In the decade 1790-180o, imports and exports gether averaged annually $100,000,000; in 1821-30 the ann average was $142,000,000; and in 1841-50 it had increased $244,000,000. The following table shows the value, both in doll and sterling, of the domestic exports and the retained imports five-year annual averages from 1850 to 1913, together with population: *Including value of exports of ships and boats (new) with their machinery recorded from 1899 only.
Throughout the period shown in the table imports have con sistently exceeded exports in value. This difference has been more than made up by receipts from such items as shipping earn ings and returns from overseas investment.
Considering first domestic exports, there was a very rapid rate of progress up to 1872, when the figure of £256,000,000 was reached. In the next 25 years there was comparatively little in crease in values, owing partly to increased competition from other countries which were now manufacturing on a substantial scale and partly to the fall in prices. Then followed a period of rapid expansion till 1913 when the figure was £525,000,000. In 1854, 90%, by value, of the domestic exports consisted of articles wholly or partly manufactured, while in 1913 the proportion of manufactured articles had fallen to 78% of the total. Exports of
coal accounted for a considerable proportion of the remainder.
The course of retained imports was similar. Their value was £134,000,000 in 1854 and increased rapidly to £315,000,000 in 1873; then till 1895 progress was slow, the figure in that year being £356,000,000, but thereafter there was, on the whole, a rapid increase till 1913 when the figure of £659,000,000 was reached. Of the retained imports, only 15% in 1854 consisted of articles wholly or partly manufactured, but by 1913 the proportion had increased to 25 per cent. The great bulk of the imports con sisted of foodstuffs and raw materials of industry, raw materials predominating in the earlier years, and foodstuffs (including drink and tobacco) from about 1875.
In 1855-9 imports and exports per head of population averaged about £9.5s. and by 1870-4 the figure had grown to about £16. As late as 1895-9 the figure was still about £16, but by 1910-13 it had increased to nearly £24.
(b) The United States.—Figures of the value of imports and exports are available for the United States as far back as 1790. At that time the population was rather under 4,000,00o and being concentrated mainly on the seaboard, was more dependent on overseas trade than later when the internal resources of the continent were developed. This is reflected in the trade statistics. In the decade 1790-1800 the value of imports and exports to gether averaged $22 per head of population; and in the decade 1821-30 the value per head dropped to rather under $10. The value per head then gradually increased to about $25 in the Up to the year 1873 the value of imports exceeded that of exports, in spite of the fact that the United States authorities value imports in the country of shipment and so exclude the freight and insurance charges from the recorded values. This excess of imports was mainly due to the fact that the United States was borrowing large amounts of capital from Great Britain for pur poses of internal development ; another reason is that the United States was still earning considerable sums from its mercantile marine, since the era of wooden ships, of which they had a large merchant navy, was not yet over. From 1873 to 1895 exports only slightly exceeded imports in value, but in the next ten years exports developed more rapidly than imports. From 1905 to 1913 both imports and exports increased at about the same rate.
The following table shows the relative distribution of (I) food stuffs (crude or manufactured), (2) raw materials for industry and (3) articles wholly or partly manufactured among the total imports and domestic exports from 186o. In the thirty years before that date the changes were comparatively small.