The President of the Board of Trade, Lord Stanley of
Preston, on Tuesday made a speech at the Mansion House on the im- provement of trade. He was not so optimistic as Lord Derby —" junior branches were never," he said, "so hopeful as the eldest sons "—but still he was fairly sanguine. There had been a great rise in wool, and therefore in textile fabrics ; there was more demand for cotton, though as yet no rise ; there was a revival in the wine trade, and, to a partial extent, in the trade in coal and iron. He thought, from the figures before him, that there was a great underlying mass of trade in the country which was little affected by the depression, and "was ready to blossom out into fresh prosperity with the hope
of commercial tranquillity and quiet." It is, of course, the cue just now of Conservative Ministers to be hopeful ; but Lord Stanley has some grounds for his pleasing conclusions. He omitted, however, to mention the great industry of agri- culture, which, except on the sheep-farms, is reported to be suffering more than ever. Note the statement that the Australian wheat-growers, who own their land, cannot compete with the Indian wheat which is beginning to pour into the Southern Colonies, and will ultimately almost monopolise the world's market. It killed the Russian export of wheat, and is now killing the American, as we prophesied it would twenty years ago. No country can compete with India when transit is once made easy, as even owners of copper and iron mines will one day discover.
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