The above table brings out very clearly the growth in the relative importance of industry in the United States during the fifty years before the war. Among the imports, the relative im portance of raw materials for industry increased threefold while the relative importance of manufactured articles declined by about one-third. On the export side the United States has tended more and more to export manufactures instead of raw materials of industry. The high proportion of foodstuffs exported in the last quarter of the 19th century was mainly due to the rapid development of cereal cultivation. As the population and the standard of living steadily increased, the surplus available for export relatively declined, while at the same time the exports of manufactures increased.
(c) figures of French trade first become available in 1815. Up to and including 1846 standard official unit values (fixed in 1826 and applied retrospectively to the re corded quantities for earlier years) were used, so that the figures represent the volume of trade rather than its real value. The fol lowing table gives the figures at decennial intervals throughout this period, together with the population: Imports increased fourfold in the thirty years while exports doubled in volume. In the same period the population increased by about 20 per cent.
From 1847 onwards, the official unit values were revised an nually, so that the figures more nearly represented actual values. The development of French trade subsequent to that date is shown in the following table : Up till the Franco-Prussian War the value of imports was about equal to that of exports but thereafter the value of imports was consistently the higher. Imports increased rapidly in value up to 188o-4 and exports up to 187o-4. There followed a distinct check till the end of the century. This check was mainly due to the heavy fall in prices. In France prices fell by rather over 40% between 1874 and 1896 when the lowest point was reached, while between 1896 and 1913 they increased by about 4o per cent. With rising prices, the value of imports practically doubled between 1895-9 and 1910-3 while the value of exports increased by 8o per cent.
The growth in population has been small in France. In 1825 imports and exports amounted to about 25/- per head; in 1850-4 the figure had about doubled and by 187o-4 it had increased tc, about L7.1 os. per head. There was then little increase till the end of the nineteenth century, but by 1910-13 imports and exports had grown to nearly Lr5 per head.
The distribution of imports and exports according to the prin cipal classes.of goods is shown in the following table, at decennial
and other intervals from 185o : (d) is only a hundred years ago that the first attempt was made at a co-ordinated commercial policy between the many independent states, large and small, which were to form in 1871 the German empire. The formation of the customs union between Prussia and certain North German States and between Bavaria and Wiirttemberg in 1828 was followed in 1834 by the amalgamation of the two unions and thereafter other states gradu ally came into the Zollverein. Before 1871, a bird's-eye view of the rate of development of Germany's oversew trade may best be gained from the shipping statistics of the port of Hamburg. The following table shows the number and tonnage of vessels entering Hamburg at decennial intervals from 1791 to 1871: Progress was fairly slow in the period up to 183r, but thereafter the tonnage entering Hamburg increased at a rapid rate down to 1871. Forty years later, in I9ri, the tonnage had increased to over thirteen million.
From 1872, the trade of the Zollverein practically represents the trade of the empire. The following table shows the development of this trade, together with the population from 1872 to the out break of the World War: *Comparable figures not available.
The general trend of both imports and exports was similar to that of the trade of the United Kingdom and France; a period of hesitancy in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, mainly due to the fall in prices, was followed by a period of rapid expansion of the value of trade in the early years of the present century, when prices were rising. In the 'eighties the values of imports and exports about balanced and thereafter the value of imports was distinctly higher than that of exports. Imports and exports to gether were about L6.iss. per head of population in 188o-4, about £7.15s. in 1895-9 and by 1910-3 had risen to nearly £14 per head.
Turning to the classes of goods imported, the following table shows the percentages of imports and of exports, classified as articles of food, raw materials, and manufactures: Such changes as occurred mostly took place before the end of the 19th century. The growth in imports of raw materials of industry is the most significant feature on the import side. Among exports, it will be seen that foodstuffs have decreased in impor tance, while raw materials and manufactures have increased. It should be mentioned that the term "raw materials" in the German statistics includes considerable quantities of goods in a semi-manu factured state (e.g., pig-iron, steel, ingots, etc.).