IN-TRANSIT AND TRANSSHIPMENT TRADE-1868 TO 1886.

The following table shows the values of merchandise received from foreign countries for immediate transit across United States territory, or for immediate transshipment in ports of the United States to other foreign countries:

This trade, although not considered a part of our import and export trade, forms a valuable feature of our carrying trade.

THE CARRYING TRADE IN UNITED STATES VESSELS AND ITS DECLINE.

The value of merchandise transported in the carrying trade of the United States during the year ending June 30, 1886, is shown as follows:

It is humiliating to our national pride that only 15 per cent. of foreign trade, measured by its value, is carried in home vessels, while 79 per cent. is carried in foreign vessels; and that in this age of rapid transportation by steam, only 7 per cent. of our foreign trade is conducted in steamers bearing our national flag, while 65 per cent. of that trade, with all its profits and the employment of capital and labor, is conducted in alien vessels. The constant and rapid decline of our share of the transportation of the commodities exchanged between this and foreign countries will be seen by reference to Appendix No. 14. A decline in the proportion of value of commodities carried in our own vessels from 75 per cent. in 1856 to 15 per cent. in 1886 is a startling fact which should arouse us to the impending danger of the utter annihilation of our foreign carrying trade.

The depressed condition of our foreign carrying trade, as compared with that of foreign nations, is forcibly illustrated by the following table, showing the total values of merchandise imported into and exported from Great Britain and Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, and the United States during the years specified, with the values and percentages carried in national and foreign vessels and in land vehicles, respectively:

• The British publications do not give the amounts of imports and exports carried in British and foreign vessels respectively, the above apportionment of the British trade therefore is based on the proportion of British and foreign tonnage entered and cleared with cargoes in the foreign trade.

A fairer exhibit of the share of each nation in its carrying trade will be made by considering only the import and export trade conducted in sea-going vessels, and excluding imports and exports by land carriage. This comparison shows the following result:

TONNAGE ENTERED AND CLEARED IN THE FOREIGN TRADE OF THE UNITED STATES.

The tonnage entered at ports of the United States in its foreign trade during the year ending June 30, 1886, as compared with 1885, was as follows:

The tonnage entered at the principal ports of the United States in the foreign trade during the fiscal year 1886 was as follows:

The total number of immigrants arrived in the United States during the year ending June 30, 1886, was 334,203, as against 395,346 during the preceding fiscal year. The decrease is in great part attributable to the cessation of efforts to procure statistics of the immigration from Canada. (See note to following table; see also Appendices Nos. 16 and 17.) There has been no marked changes from the preceding year in the immigration from the various countries, the principal decline being in

The following table shows the number and nationalities of immigrants arrived in the United States during the last fiscal year, as compared with the fiscal year 1885 :

*Owing to the absence of law for the collection of statistics of immigration by railways, immi grants from the Dominion of Canada and Mexico are not included in the statistics of immigration since July 1, 1885.

Number of immigrants arrived in the principal and all other customs districts of the United States during the years ending June 30,1885 and 1886, respectively.

* Immigrants from the Dominion of Canada and Mexico are not included since July 1, 1885.

DEFECTS IN STATISTICAL LAWS.

In my Annual Report on Foreign Commerce for the fiscal year 1885 I called attention to the defects in the statistical laws in the following language:

This Bureau, under my direction, is earnestly striving to collect as fully as possible the statistics of our foreign commerce, but the law under which it is operating was passed in 1821, when our foreign commerce in merchandise amounted to only $109,017,157, and at a period anterior to the introduction of steam as a motive power for vessels or land vehicles. This law has remained on the statute books substantially as it was passed in 1821, when there was little or no traffic across our land frontiers, and provides no means by which collectors or other agents of the Government, through whom our statistics are collected, can procure data in regard to—

(1) Exports of domestic commodities from the country by railway cars or other land vehicles.

(2) Of immigrants and passengers arriving in the country by railway cars or other land vehicles.

(3) Of emigrants and passengers leaving the country either by land conveyance or by water.

(4) Of the movement of commodities and vessels in our coastwise trade.

(5) Of the products of our marine fisheries brought into ports of the United States, except such products as are brought from the distant whale fisheries.

With respect to exports the law in question provides only the means of collecting the statistics of exports to foreign countries, in vessels, and a later enactment provides for the collection of statistics of immigrants arriving from foreign countries in vessels alone.

No statistics of exports by railways are now procured except from the officers of a few railway companies. The officers of companies of railroads leading into Mexico, and of several important routes leading into Canada, utterly refuse to give collectors of customs any data in regard to the exports over their roads, claiming that they are not required by law to do so.

Full and correct statistics of our trade with Canada and with Mexico are especially important at this time when our trade interests with those countries are the frequent subject of legislation, arbitration, or negotiation.

Experience has deepened my convictions in regard to the necessity for some legislation on this subject, and I therefore earnestly renew my recommendations as above set forth. A bill was drafted and submitted through you to the last Congress, which embodies my views on this subject, and which is now pending before the Committee on Commerce in the House of Representatives.

It affords me pleasure to again say that during my incumbency of this office the clerks and employés of this Bureau have rendered me most valuable and cordial co-operation in the effort to attain greater promptitude in the pubiication of its reports, and to make them of greater usefulness to the country, and to those whose duty or inclination brings them face to face with the economic problems of the times. Very respectfully,

Umf Sirtzler

Hon. DANIEL MANNING,

Chief of Bureau.