562

Commercial Report.

[Jan. 1, should ensue in 1817, as existed in 1813, with our stock so diminished as it is, a very considerable advance in price must be the result.

Our manufactures in general continue not altogether in limited demand, but in much less demand than our capability to supply, which occasions both manufactured goods and manufacturing labour to continue at the lowest possible rates, and consequently to diminish very materially the amount of circulating capital throughout the Country. The increased price of grain is however calculated in a high degree to renovate, this main spring of our commerce, and which we trust every succeeding month will tend to confirm. The latest advices from Russia corroborate the accounts previously received that the harvest throughout that vast empire has been abundant, and of excellent quality. This information, whilst it is calculated to allay the fears (if any exist) of real scarcity, is also calculated to create important advantages to commerce at large, and essentially so to Great Britain and Russia. The present prices of grain, according to the latest advices from St. Petersburgh, are about 425. per quarter for wheat weighing 60 lbs. per bushel; 24s. per quarter for rye weighing 55 lbs. per bushel; and 27s. per quarter for linseed; which prices are only about one-third of our present prices, and about one-fourth of what they may probably attain, whilst the expences of freight and all other charges will not exceed 10s. per quarter. Here then is a prospect for Russia of unexpectedly realising three capitals upon the surplus products of her soil. What inference can we deduce from this advantageous to the reciprocal interests of Great Britain and Russia? Why, that Russia has a proportionate increase of capital to employ, and that Great Britain will indubitably receive that increase of capital for commercial and manufacturing labour. So far there appears a reciprocity of consequences that come within the range of present calculation. But it opens a still wider scene of gratulation, by an extension of thought on the subject. It may prove a new and brilliant era in the annals of a country unbounded in resources. Russia, hitherto, with a population four times as great as that of the United States of America, has not con> sumed one-fourth so much of the products of manufactures and commerce; because, owing to the difference of the nature of the respective governments, and the desolating policy of Europe with but little intermission for a century past, the population of the greater part of Russia have been excluded from the pale of commercial society, and consequently the wants and gratifications that commerce create unknown among them. If, then, the unfavourable harvest which the most commercial part of Europe has experienced should occasion an intercourse with an extended population, amongst whom commerce and its advantages are but little known, but whom Providence has bountifully supplied with what we want, is it not fair to calculate that it will prove the means of creating a desire and an exertion amongst the population of Russia to participate in common with the rest of Europe in the enjoyments which commerce is so well calculated to produce? The transactions that have already taken place in the purchases of grain have had the effect of producing an alteration of 4 to 5 per cent. in our exchanges in favour of our commerce, and at the commencement of a new year we anticipate the pleasure of being able from month to month to report a successive prosperity in all the great pursuits of life-Agriculture, the Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce.

1817.]

[ 563 ]
Table

Shewing the Weekly Delivery of Sugar, Coffit, and Rum, from the st India Docks, London, for the Year 1816; distinguishing the proportion delivered for Home Consumption and for Exportation.

Total

1815

1816127,819 2.838 16,904 4,765 442,380 2,469 16,807 36,928 99,800.532,281 12,096 18.556 108.721 31,218 18,1425,246 487,856 1,701 15,06239,304 141,156,634,19114,480 24,887

44.756 11,233

45,012 9.169

Balance, of
do. do.

28,924 113,208 Stock, 3d Jan., 1316
[14,502) 56,659 do. 24th Dec. 1816 18,512

25,287

The whole of these articles are generally sold by the merchants at the exportation prices, and when intended for home consumption the buyers pay the duties affixed, which added to portation price gives the price for home consumption.

70 a 76

69 a 70

743 78.

76 a 89

98 a 105

85 a 95

70 a 86

90 a 108 71 a 80

10 10 a 11 10 9a62 ola 11/10

28 6d a 28 76

2 10 a 3 5 3 10 & 4 6

10 a 33 934

TALLOW-St. Petersbgh yel.Candles. 2d. duty per cwt. § per cwt.

1817.]

62 62632|77|

95 16

62 163 22 772

88

DAILY PRICES OF STOCKS, FROM NOVEMBER 25, 1816, TO DECEMBER 24, 1816, BOTH INCLUSIVE.