BRITISH. Description. Total number, tonnage, and crews of steam vessels entered and cleared at each port in the colony of Sierra Leone during the year 1883. CLEARED. Salt fish of all kinds. Bacon, smoked or salted Trade plates..... Trade basins... per pound.. $0 05 .do.... 06 .do.... 05 04 04 04 04 .each.. 40 ..do... 60 ..do... 50 ..do... 25 ..do... 1.00 ..do... 100 ..do... 1 25 Rum, gin, brandy, whisky, and every sort of alcoholic spirits containing not more than 40 per cent. of alcohol.. Pure alcohol by physicians.. per gallon.. Liquors containing alcohol, 10 per cent. added to every additional degree above 400 Ad valorem duties: Upon all and every other species of goods, wares, merchandise imported into the Republic of Liberia, 12 cents ad valorem Transient traders, upon said goods 9 per cent. upon actual amount of 37 50 10 Calabar beans. Cocoa.... Coffee... per pound.. J. H. SMYTH, Consul-General. UNITED STATES CONSULATE-GENERAL, Monrovia, February 21, 1884. CAPE COLONY. Report by Consul Siler on the commerce and industries of Cape Colony during the year 1883. At the close of last year a belief was universal that the worst of the financial depression which had scourged the country for two years preceding had spent itself; and that with the advent of the new year, trade would revive and commerce resume its wonted vigor and activity in South Africa. These expectations have not been realized. The year 1882, burdened with a legacy of scarcity and financial troubles of the preceding year, and with its own embarrassments of short crops and a fearful small-pox epidemic superadded, proved the most trying through which the colony had ever passed; and while the first two months of the present year showed signs of better times, the indication proved but transitory; and at the present writing, little if any improvement on the depression of last year can be discerned. Recuperation will necessarily be slow and tedious, and will depend in a great measure upon the yield of the products of the colony for the next year or two. The causes which have culminated in the past and present unsatisfactory state of things here cannot be better expressed than by quoting the words of the colonial treasurer-general, used in his financial report to the house of assembly, on July 17, last. He said: Various circumstances have combined to cause this serious depression; among which may be enumerated the severe outbreak of small-pox in the early part of 1882, which, by the necessity that arose of proclaiming and enforcing quarantine laws, caused a very serious impediment to trade. Then the cessation of the lavish war expenditure has no doubt materially contributed in many ways to these results; enormous indents for supplies had swollen the imports abnormally, and I believe that I am within the mark in saying that importers had overshot the requirements of trade by nearly one year's supply of goods. But the chief cause of the depression originated in the diamond mining districts, where speculation in shares of the various mining companies had become quite a mania, and where the diamond industry has been brought to a state of semi-stagnation. THE REVENUE. The revenue of the colony is derived, first, from the customs, reaching in 1880-'81 the sum of $5,762,296.12, this sum being increased in the following year to $6,528,317.28. The item of next importance is that of government railway receipts, which rose during the same period from $3,597,341.13 to $4,705,204.72; a great proportion of the increase, however, being due to the extension of railways, a matter with which I shall have to deal further on. The land revenue during the period above named advanced from upwards of $778,640 to $876,582. The other principal sources of revenue are a real estate transfer duty of 2 per cent., bringing in 1880-'81 $627,778, and in 1881-82 $710,509, revenue stamps increasing in the same time from $510,982.50 to $637,711. There are also succession duties, auction duties, bank-note duties, mines, telegraphic receipts, excise, crown land sales, &c., contributing to the general revenue. The total revenue of the colony was in 1880-'81 $14,648,018.95, and in 1881-82 $17,153,721.45, giving a net increase of $2,505,702.45. The approximate result of (unaudited) revenue derived from direct and indirect taxation during the year ending June 30, 1883, was a fraction |