Note 1.—The mutual trade between the Possessions of the British People embraces every single article required for food, clothing, education, commerce, manufacture, or agriculture, and for all the pursuits, avocations, and pleasures of every class of the people; and is capable of such limitless expansion, by reason of the diversities of climates and geological conditions, as to make the British Empire—with a due commercial understanding between its several local governments—absolutely independent of the productions of every other country in the world.

Note 2.—The foregoing Table is compiled from the various Official Animal Statements issued in this country, and the values are in almost all cases those at which the articles are appraised on importation, which include the freight and cost of transport. These statements are deficient in many of the particulars needed for full information, as may be seen by the many blanks, and the absence of many Possessions, denoting that there are no available returns. It must be taken, therefore, as but an approximation, though a close one, to complete accuracy. So far as the inter-colonial trade is concerned, most of the figures which make up the 2nd column as imports into the one possession are again included in column 4 as exports from another. The grand total, therefore, in column 5 is swollen through this duplication by about £43,000,000, but it falls short by many smaller amounts, of which there are no returns. It may be approximately stated that the whole mutual trade of the Empire is to the value of between £250,000,000 and £300,000,000.