LARGE CONSUMPTION OF FOODSTUFFS.
So far as the balance of trade for the month is concerned, the position is strengthened by the fact that the value of imports shrank by nearly £6,000,000, though that fall was more than accounted for by a drop of over £9,000,000 under the head of Coal, because a year ago, of course, we were importing that commodity hand over fist. It will be seen, therefore, that, apart from Coal, imports have again tended to expand and an 'unsatisfactory feature in the Returns is the increase of nearly £7,000,000 in the value of foodstuffs, the shipments of wheat from the United States alone repre- senting an increase in value of £1,000,000. A further feature was a rise of nearly £2,000,000 in the value of our imports of tea, which came chiefly from the British East Indies and Ceylon. On the other hand,' an interesting feature of the Returns was the heavy decline in the value of cotton received from the U.S., which fell by about £3,600,000, notwithstanding the small increase in price, and against this the U.S. was a much larger buyer of rubber from us.
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