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and all over Europe the same condition obtains. Each country weaves the greater part of the cotton cloths it consumes, and British cotton goods taken form a small and lessening item. Our traders may not hope to see this state of things substantially altered. We said that there is still a considerable purchase of cotton yarns in Lancashire, to be woven upon Continental looms; but excluding this export of yarns, which go to assist in the foreign production of cloth, the united export of cotton manufactures from this country to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Russia in 1891 was worth only about one and a half million sterling more than the imports into the United Kingdom of cotton manufactures from those countries, which, with those of the United States, amounted in value to £2,704,000. Were British cotton goods wholly excluded from the principal countries of Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, and were the same articles made in them prohibited from entering the United Kingdom, the loss to Lancashire would therefore be inconsiderable. The statement holds good with respect to the comparative export of our cotton goods to, and import from, the United States of America.

These facts compel us to ponder the question, where the product of the largest manufacture of Great Britain—the surplus product after supplying the home trade—valued at present at over £60,000,000 a-year (or £71,000,000, including yarn), is in the future to find sufficient outlets, when, by the severest prohibitory laws, it has been forbidden access to each of the other greatest modern trading countries, with an aggregate population of 360,000,000. Then, on the Asiatic continent, China, with its 315,000,000 of people, is nearly as effectually sealed as ever, as regards its interior, against British trade. China takes yearly only £6,700,000 worth of British articles, of which, however, cotton goods constitute five-sixths. The rest of Asia, outside India, including Persia, Arabia, Siam, &c., affords few openings to British commercial enterprise. The African continent (except Egypt and the Nile Valley) has now been partitioned amongst the British, Belgian, Dutch, Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, and Italian Governments. The vast trackless wildernesses of its central watershed have been painfully penetrated by explorers. The time may come when Africa will absorb large quantities of the manufactures of Europe in exchange for its natural products; but considering what must be done and spent in opening up that continent by roads and railroads between the ports on the coast and the great lakes, and the savagery of the tribes that inhabit those terrible stretches of tropical forest and swamp, we must not expect any very rapid development of British trade with Africa, in what remains of this century, nor, perhaps, until our descendants have advanced some way into the next. Egypt might be found of increasing value to us as a trading base if it could remain in British hands; but our statesmen have intimated that the British occupation is but temporary, so that traders dare not build upon it; and when it ends—be it one year hence or ten years—what trade Egypt can yield must be shared by one or more of our strongest rivals.

Australasia is more promising as a future market for British manufactures than British America, or than any other group of British colonies. The Australians are remarkably energetic traders. They