The value of all the imports into the United Kingdom for the year 1865, was £271,131,967; so that the value of the imports of the countries above enumerated is very nearly one-fourth of the total value of English imports. British exports, consisting of materials and of articles manufactured in Great Britain in 1865, were £165,862,402, of which nearly one-fourth was exported to the above-enumerated countries. The total tonnage of the vessels cleared inwards in British ports during 1865, was 14,317,866 tons. The total outward tonnage was 14,576,206 tons. The inward tonnage, to the countries enumerated above, was therefore a tenth of the total inward tonnage of the kingdom; and the outward tonnage was an eighth of the total outward tonnage.
In proof of the immense and rapid extension of England’s trade with the East, it may be stated that the figures given above show amounts three times as great as they were five years, and nearly twenty times as great as they were fifty years ago.
The Eastern mails, sent viâ Marseilles, are packed in wrought-iron boxes. They weigh about thirteen pounds, and their contents usually weigh about thirty-seven pounds. A box, fully packed, contains about 220 newspapers; the average weight of each of which is 3¼ English ounces. If a box be filled with letters, the number of them is about 1,800. The average weight of each letters is a little more than a quarter of an English ounce, or about 7½ French grammes.
The mails sent viâ Southampton are packed in wooden boxes of larger dimensions than those sent viâ Marseilles. As the letter postal rate is really double viâ Marseilles what it is viâ Southampton, and as the great proportion of the official letters passing between the Indian office in London and the three presidencies in India, as well as the official correspondence with the army and navy, is conveyed viâ Southampton, the number of letters carried in a box is about the same as in a box viâ Marseilles, notwithstanding the difference of dimensions. The number of newspapers sent in a box viâ Southampton is about a third more than in a box sent viâ Marseilles.
In 1850, when there were only two despatches of mails from England to the East per month, viâ Marseilles, and one per month viâ Southampton, the average number of boxes per despatch was 57 viâ Marseilles and 152 viâ Southampton.
In 1858, as I have already stated, mails commenced to be despatched between England and Australia by the Overland Route—that is both viâ Southampton and viâ Marseilles. The service is once a month, and the Australian mail forms a part of the mails despatched from Southampton on the 20th of each month, and from Marseilles on the 26th of each month.
The dates for the three other despatches of each month are viâ Southampton the 4th, the 12th, the 27th; viâ Marseilles the 3rd, the 10th, and the 17th.
I mentioned in the last paragraph but two the number of boxes of mails despatched per month in 1850.
In 1861 the average number of boxes despatched viâ Marseilles, on the three occasions in each month when the Australian are not forwarded, was 89; but on the 26th of each month, when the Australian mail is included, the number of boxes despatched was 232.
The weight of the mails from the East towards England is never so great as from England towards the East; and this is caused from the fact that for every fifty newspapers that are sent from England to the East there is not more than one sent from the East to England; and the average weight of the latter is little more than one half the average weight of the former. For this reason the number of boxes received on each occasion in each month of 1861, when the Australian mail was not received, was twenty-two; but when the Australian mail was received the number was fifty-three.