discounts, drawbacks, and bounties of the nature of drawbacks, and excluding therefrom miscellaneous receipts, and the rate per head of the population of such revenue; also the amount of property and profits assessed for the income tax, the amount of income per head of the population, and the poundage of said taxation on such income, for Great Britain and Ireland in the year ending the 31st day of March 1862 :— Another Parliamentary return states that in Great Britain the annual average amount of property and income tax contributed per head of population in the quinquennial period ending March 31, 1858, was 10s. 4 d., and in Ireland 2s. 10d. The annual average in Great Britain in the quinquennial period ending March 31, 1863, was 78. 114d., and in Ireland 2s. 4d. Commerce and Trade. 1. Imports and Exports. The declared real value of the total imports and exports of merchandise into and from the United Kingdom for the years 1861, 1862, and 1863, is shown in the following table : The various countries of the world divided among them the imports into the United Kingdom in the following manner in the years 1862 and 1863. The value given is after the official returns of the Board of Trade; but the countries are placed in the order of their commercial importance in the year 1863. The value of imports into the United Kingdom has increased from 217,485,0247. in 1861, to 248,980,9427. in 1863, showing a difference of 31,495,9187. The whole of this increase has been in Colonial produce, the augmentation of which in the two years has been 32,017,7107. First in the list of foreign importers, in the place formerly occupied by the United States, stands France, which, in the year 1863, found in the people of Great Britain customers for the products of her industry to the amount of more than 24 millions sterling, or about a tenth part of the entire total we take from all the countries of the world. Next comes Egypt, which in the course of a few years has doubled her import trade with the United Kingdom. Turkey, although she is lower in the list, likewise continues to make progress. From Japan the imports more than doubled in 1863, compared with the preceding year. Among the remaining countries, the principal of those which present an increase are China, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Portugal, Denmark, the Philippine Islands, the Argentine Republic, Uruguay, Greece, and Hayti. Those showing a decrease are Germany, Russia, Italy, Western Africa, New Granada, and Bolivia. The exports of British produce during the years 1862 and 1863 were divided between the following British possessions and foreign countries. The returns are those of the Board of Trade; but the countries are arranged in the order of their importance as buyers of British produce. |