tals; or 8 per cent more, both as to weight and value, than in 1844, a year yet unequalled in its results.

As in preceding years, the transit trade in cotton and silk fabrics, silk, woollen fabrics, and cotton, has fallen off in value.

Cotton, castings, iron and steel, coffee, refined sugar, cotton fabrics, and raw and clayed sugars, comprise in weight more than half of the transit trade. Of these articles, cotton and cotton fabrics alone exhibit an increase; the advance is 23 and 7 per cent on 1844; refined sugar has fallen off 46 per cent; metals and coffee, 21 and 8 per cent.

Switzerland, the German Customs Union, Belgium, the United States, and Sardinia, have contributed the most to the transit trade of France, at the place of import.

The marked falling off in the aggregate of the carrying trade chiefly affected imports from the German Customs Union, the Sardinian States, and Belgium, and the exports to Spain, the United States, the Sardinian States, and England.

WAREHOUSING. The weight of foreign goods warehoused was 9,927,622 metrical quintals; the value, 695,000,000 francs, an advance of 431,104 quintals, and 31,000,000 francs, on 1844.

Thirty-four per cent of the whole value of goods warehoused were bonded at Marseilles, and 33 per cent at Havre. Marseilles has fallen off 3 per cent; Havre has gained 4 per cent. There has been an increase, also, at Bordeaux, Lyons, Nantes, Dunkirk, Rouen, Metz, Calais, and Boulogne. A falling off in value has taken place at Bayonne, Toulon, Cette, Strasburg, Toulouse, and Orleans. The value of goods warehoused at Paris, was nearly the same in both years.

In weight, 40 per cent of the goods bonded were warehoused at Marseilles, and 24 per cent at Havre; the former losing 15, and the latter 24 per cent, on 1844. With something of a decrease in the quantity warehoused at Cette, Metz, Orleans, Toulouse, and Lyons, all the places of storage in France have shared in the upward tendency.

BOUNTIES. Bounties or drawbacks on importation, have been paid out to the amount of 21,054,477 francs, exclusive of the bounties to the cod and whale fisheries, the regulation of which belongs to the department of commerce. This amount is 6,256,547 francs more than in 1844, and 8,463,800 francs more than the average of the last five years. This increase comes particularly from the exportation of refined sugars, on which the amount of bounties paid was 13,198,000 francs. Of this, 3,521,763 francs went to sugars from the French colonies, 2,607,626 francs to foreign sugars; both together, more than 6,000,000.

Hitherto, the export of cotton-thread, with benefit of bounty, attracted little attention. But in 1845, there is an advance on 1844, in the quantity of the article exported, from 785 to 7,519 metrical quintals; the bounties paid have increased from 19,625 to 187,976 francs.

COD AND WHALE FISHERY. The cod and whale fishery did not turn out so well as in 1844. The returns were 391,296 metrical quintals of codfish, oil, and whalebone; 46,364 metrical quintals less than in 1844. Consequently, but 69,730 metrical quintals of cod were exported, instead of 100,281 quintals, the quantity exported in 1844.

One-half of these exports were to the French colonies, Guadaloupe and Martinique, and 22 per cent of the surplus to Italy.

DUTIES OF EVERY KIND. The duties from every source received at

the custom-house, amounted to the sum total of 217,421,597 francs; of which the duties on imports amounted to 151,850,533 francs, on exports and navigation, and incidental receipts, 7,478,779; tax on the consumption of salt, 58,092,285.

The duties on imports yielded 263,728 francs less than in 1844, when the receipts were higher than ever before realized.

The decrease is chiefly in the receipts from the cereal grains, which yielded 5,500,000 francs less than in the previous year; flax and hempen thread show a falling off in the receipts of 500,000 francs. This decrease has not been entirely made up by the aggregate increase of receipts from other articles, such as colonial sugars, cotton-wool, wool, foreign sugars, and coal.

The duty on the consumption of salt yielded 1,401,132 francs more than in 1844. This increase is about the same in amount as the falling off in 1844, from the year previous.

The aggregate receipts from duties are 1,595,893 francs more than in the previous year. The duties were collected at the principal customhouses in the following proportions :

The commercial marine of France, employed in its import and export trade with the colonies and foreign powers, comprised 30,245 vessels, exclusive of vessels in ballast, measuring 3,572,000 tons. These results were never attained in preceding years.

Of the whole shipping, 42 per cent of the ships employed, and 39 per cent of the tonnage, was under the French flag. This is the same proportion as in 1844.

Of the 12,659 ships, measuring 1,398,000 tons, belonging to the French flag, 3,647 ships and 540,000 tons were employed in privileged commerce, and 9,012 ships, of the tonnage of 858,000 tons, were employed in navi. gation open to the competition of foreign powers. There was an addition of 209 sail, and 55,000 tons to the national shipping, and of 589 ships and 87,000 tons to foreign shipping.

The precise amount of the increase of the national marine of France, since 1844, is 898 ships, and 142,000 tons; the increase of the foreign marine was 1,120 ships, measuring 142,000 tons.

Of the aggregate shipping, 6,287 were steam-vessels, measuring 842,000 tons; this is 10 ships less than in 1844, but the tonnage is 92,000 tons greater.

The change in numbers is as follows:-There were 109 ships less, and 12,000 tons more employed under the French flag; 99 ships and 80,000 tons more under foreign flags.

We annex, from the French official report, tabular statements of the French export and import trade with the United States, Mexico, and Texas, in 1845, as follows:

Art. II.-COST OF PRODUCTION AND FOREIGN DEMAND FOR OUR BREADSTUFFS.

AMONG the many interesting subjects which are at this time exciting the attention of the commercial and agricultural classes, there is none more deeply interesting than that upon which we propose to say a few wordsthe probability of a permanent foreign demand for, and cost of producing our breadstuffs. There seems to be, at the present time, a strong tendency among commercial nations, towards abandoning their old systems of restrictions and protections, and substituting instead a more free and equal system of commercial legislation; and certain it is, that if this, the doctrine of free trade, advances with the same giant strides for the next ten years, that it has for the last five, we may expect to see it, ere long, firmly established on the ruins of its "illustrious predecessor." If we understand this doctrine rightly, the fundamental principle of it-the founda. tion-stone upon which it is all built-is, that, in the universal competition among nations, produced by free trade, that nation which, by means of its greater natural advantages, cheaper labor, more abundant capital, or greater skill, industry, or energy, can produce a given article cheaper than others, will command the market of the world for that article. In view, therefore, of this result, it behooves us to look around and ascertain, if we can, what peculiar advantages we possess for producing certain articles, and what those articles are. It is evident that in the production of cotton, for instance, no nation could compete with us, and we should have then, as we do now, almost the entire monopoly of the article; so, also, in some articles of manufactures, and the fisheries. It is very doubtful, for instance, whether any nation could compete with us in foreign markets, for the supply of the coarser cotton fabrics; and it is certain that, though the English and French can "fit out" their whale-ships as cheaply, we could, by superior skill and management, drive them completely from the ocean. With regard to many other articles, however, there is a great diversity of opinion, and especially so with regard to our ability to supply foreign na tions with breadstuffs. One great reason of the difference of opinion on