PROGRESS OF TRADE.

How trade has expanded since the Anglo-Saxon time, when Billingsgate was the sole London wharf for the discharge of ships' cargoes; how British commerce has grown from the small beginnings of the Norman period; how it has struggled on and augmented in spite of royal decrees and ordinances promulgated for its protection, in reality, fettering and crippling it in every direction, would require many pages.

One king prescribed the prices at which certain goods should be bought and sold; another declared in what places trade should be carried on; a third forbade merchants, under heavy penalties, to deal in more than one kind of merchandise. Foreign merchants were compelled, by another sovereign, to expend all the proceeds of the goods they sold in the purchase of English merchandise,-a kingly method of settling the balance of trade. Thus, law was heaped upon trade, until trade was almost overwhelmed and the merchant felt puzzled as to the legal mode of conducting his business. It need not therefore be matter for surprise that, in the days of the White and Red Rose the whole community did not transact as much business as is now done by any single high-class commercial firm in London, Manchester, or Liverpool. But science has brought facilities for trade, the bare mention of which tends to show its extent. Railways bring people and goods together which before were always separated. A cask of sugar, to get from Glasgow to Carlisle, had formerly to circumnavigate England in a ship; now it reaches its destination in a few hours by railway. Merchants living at a distance from one another corresponded for years and never once met. Now, the Glasgow, Liverpool, or United States merchant makes his journeys to London or to other centres of trade, as often as need arises. The introduction of the electric telegraph has also helped to work a great change in the mode of trans

acting business. Instead of the day's operations being, as formerly, entirely carried on upon 'change, bargains are struck between Liverpool, London, and continental firms, of many thousand pounds' value-from morning till eveningthrough the agency of electric wires. A ship laden with coffee from Costa Rica, or sugar from the Brazils, arrives at some port in the English Channel, consigned to the order of a London merchant on account of a firm abroad. The captain does not come to an anchor and wait an exchange of posts with London for his orders, he simply puts his sails aback, pulls ashore in his boat, sends a few words by electric telegraph announcing his arrival, and, by the time he has finished a glass of grog at his favorite inn, a reply reaches him from town, to this effect: "The London market is depressed; go on to Hamburg." At the end of an hour, from first stepping into his boat, he is making all sail for his new destination.

What would the shade of Edward III. say to the entry, inward and outward, of upwards of twenty thousand ships at the port of London alone! In his day, the customs' receipts amounted to about eight thousand pounds a year; while from that of Elizabeth, the state of comparative peace in which this country remained from her accession to the reign of Charles I., caused the customs' revenue of London to reach one hundred and nine thousand pounds in one year. A century later, it reached half a million sterling; in the year 1837, it amounted to ten millions and a quarter, being precisely half of the entire customs' revenue of the United Kingdom.

In 1853, upwards of four million tons of shipping were entered both ways, at the port of London alone, against one hundred and eighty thousand in the middle of the last century. The declared value of the goods exported from this country in 1849 was upwards of sixty-three millions sterling; showing that, within twenty years, our trade beyond sea had increased by fifty per cent. Thanks

to free trade, steam, and electricity, we are now advancing with more rapid strides; and we have accomplished, in four years, what had previously required twenty to bring about. In 1853 our exports amounted to nearly one hundred millions sterling, being an increase of more than fifty per cent upon the trade of 1849, and equalling the yearly revenue of the whole of continental Europe, with the exception of France.

Of our entire export trade, one third goes to the British colonies; and more than another third is shipped to the United States. In 1853, to various parts of the world, we did not fail to remark that the British manufactures and produce exported to the colony of Victoria amounted, within a few thousands, to the value of the whole of the imports to British India, viz., seven millions sterling. The population of the two being respectively two hundred and fifty thousand, and one hundred and forty millions, it follows that the proportionate consumption per head was twentyeight pounds sterling in Victoria, and one shilling in British India. The ratio in which our manufactures are taken by different places is interesting and instructive. Thus golddigging would appear to be a thirsty occupation, and golddiggers a jovial community; seeing that one half of the wine and beer sent to this country is taken by the Australian colonists, -in other words, if they drink it all in one year, they will absorb two hundred thousand barrels of strong beer, and nearly one million and a half gallons of wine. This is exclusive of spirits, which were exported to Australia at the rate of seven gallons for each colonist. The chief occupations in Australia are those of shepherds, stockkeepers, and gold-diggers, and one would imagine such kinds of work, being none of the cleanest, would create a demand for the stoutest description of clothing. Yet it would appear that sheep are tended, cattle herded, and gold dug for in light evening costume; silks having been taken to the value of nearly half a million, and muslins and cam

brics to the extent of a million and a half yards; whilst, of "vulgar" fustians only one hundred and twenty-four thousand yards were required.

Queen Elizabeth found some difficulty in collecting and manning a few hundred ships to repel the Spanish armada. In the year 1853, Great Britain owned upwards of twentyfive thousand sailing vessels and thirteen hundred steamships, independently of the royal navy. But a better indication of the extraordinary rate at which commerce, in the most extended sense of that word, has advanced, exists in the increase of correspondence by post.

From a recently-published report of the PostmasterGeneral, it appears that, a century ago, the annual revenue of the Post-Office was only one hundred and forty thousand pounds. It now amounts to two millions and a half sterling. The increase in the transmission of money through the Post-office has been even more prodigious. Fifteen years ago, the number of money-orders issued from that establishment was one hundred and ninety thousand. Last year the number almost exceeds belief. It amounted to ten millions and a half. The centre of the British trade is the Royal Exchange. Although the most commercial people in the world, except the Dutch, we were the last to provide our merchants with a building suitable for the daily transaction of their business. To so late a period as the reign of Elizabeth, the merchants of London were wont to assemble in Lombard Street, where, in the open air, in all weathers, and at all seasons, they were content to gossip and make their bargains. In those familiar days, when our streets were wider and far less frequented, it may not have greatly interfered with the traffic of the city. Those open-air meetings had prevailed for several centuries, and it may appear still more singular that, at the present time, three centuries later, there are many of the larger manufacturing towns in the North possessing stately Exchanges, but where the dealers, brokers, and spinners, prefer assembling around

some time-honored iron pump, or about some decaying wooden post, in the badly-paved, weather-beaten street. The first Royal Exchange was erected by, and at the chief cost of, Sir Thomas Gresham, whose business-sign, the grass-hopper, still adorns the summit of the building. It consisted of two floors, in the upper of which was a species of bazaar, in which were exposed for sale every conceivable article, from Venetian silk to mouse-traps and Jews' trumpets. The royal Elizabeth, to encourage this new 66 burse," as it was termed, paid it a visit, and christened it the Royal Exchange. Sir Thomas, we read, aware of the importance of the occasion, went twice round the Upper Pawne, and besought the few vendors of goods already located there, "that they would furnish and adorn, with wares and waxlights, as many shoppes as they coulde or woulde, and they shoulde have all those shoppes so furnished rent-free that yeare."

The effect of royal patronage was not less marked in those times than in the present day. The shops that were thus given rent-free paid within a year or two afterwards as much as four pounds ten shillings per annum, a large rental at that period; and traders were most solicitous for room in the Upper Pawne. The building was originally constructed of timber and slate, and it was no irreparable calamity that it fell amidst the general destruction of the Great Fire of 1666. Three years later, the second building was opened on the old site greatly improved in appearance, solidity, and utility. In January, 1838, this second Exchange was burnt down. Four years precisely from that date the first stone of the present building was laid by Prince Albert. Household Words.