189

Indies,  British  Guiana,  Newfoundland,  Costa  Rica.
Ten  countries,  stated  in  the  order  of  their
importance.
Asia.—British  India,  China,  Straits  Settlements,
Japan,  Ceylon,  Aden,  Mauritius.  Seven  countries,
stated  in  the  order  of  their  importance.
Australasia.  —  Australian  Commonwealth,  New
Zealand.  Two  countries,  stated  in  the  order  of
their  importance.
Africa.—Egypt,  British  South  Africa  (Cape  of
Good  Hope,  Natal,  &c.),  British  West  Africa
(Gold  Coast,  Nigeria,  Sierra  Leone,  &c.).  Three
countries,  stated  in  the  order  of  their  importance.
Thus,  the  facts  for  forty  different  parts  of
the  world  have  been  examined  during  fifteen
years.  In  some  countries,  such  as  Brazil  and
Turkey,  the  necessary  records  do  not  exist.
And  some  countries  where  the  trade  is  trivial
or  where  the  facts  are  wanting,  such  as  British
Honduras  and  Cyprus,  have  not  been  included.
The  first  thing  that  had  to  be  done  was  to
summarise  the  export  trade  for  each  of  these
forty  parts  of  the  world  for  each  of  the  fifteen
years  1890-1904.  This  has  been  done,  and  the
net  result  of  these  600  tabulations  may  be
condensed  as  follows.
Taking  the  world’s  exports  (from  my  working ­
  sheets)  and  summing  them  up  in  successive
periods  of  five  years  and  of  ten  years,  so  as  to
show  the  course  of  trade,  I  find  that  the  world’s
export  trade  is  not  absolutely  immune  from  fluctuation. ­
  It  is  nearly  constantly  increasing,  but
not  quite,  as  the  following  statement  shows  :—