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108 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
that growth took place in the earlier period because
there were railways in many districts where they had
not been· before, and there was no room for a similar
expansion in the later period. But the difference in
the rate of growth it will be observed is very great
indeed, and this explanation seems hardly adequate to
account for all the difference. At any rate, to repeat a
remark already made, the indications are no longer so
simple as they were. There is something to be ex-
plained. '
The figures as to the number of tons of goods car-
ried are not in the above table; nor are such figures
very good, so long as they are not reduced to show
the number ·of tons conveyed one mile. But, quantum
valtant, they may be quoted from the Board of Trade
tables already referred to. The increase, then, in
minerals conveyed between 1855 and 1865 is from
about 40 million to nearly 80 million tons, or 100 per
cent.; between 1865 and 1875 it is from 80 to about
140 million tons, or 75 per cent.; and in the last ten
years it is from 140 to 190 million tons only, if quite
so much, or about 36 per cent. only. As regards general
merchandise, again, the progression in the three ten
yearly periods is in the first from about 24 to 37 mil-
lion tons, or rather more than 50 per cent.; in the
second from 37 to 63 million tons, or 70 per cent.;
and in the third from 63 to 73 million fons, or 16 per
cent. only. As far as they go there is certainly nothing
in these figures to oppose the indications of a falling-
off in the rate of increase of general business already
cited.
Coming to the movement of shipping in the foreign
trade, the series of figures we obtain is the following,
which relate to clearances only, those relating to entries
being of course little more than duplicate, so that they
need not be repeated: 1855, 10 million tons; 1865,
15 million tons; 1875.24 million tons; 1885.32 million
tons. And the rate of growth thus shown is between
1855 and 1865 no less than 50 per cent.; between 1865