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during the past year. We give at the foot of this paper a list of articles, comprising most first-rate articles of commerce, and it will be seen that the rise of price, though not universal and not uniform, is nevertheless very striking and very general. The most remarkable cases are—

		January.			December.
		£	s.	d.	£	s.	d.
Wool—South Down hogs	per pack	13	0	0	21	15	0
Cotton—Upland ordinary	per lb.	0	0	71/4	0	0	83/8
No. 40 mule yarn, etc.	per lb.„	0	1	11/2	0	1	21/2
Iron—Bars, British	per ton	7	2	6	8	17	6
Pig, No. 1 Clyde	per ton„	2	13	3	3	16	0
Lead	per lb.„	18	7	6	19	2	6
Tin	per lb.„	137	0	0	157	0	0
Copper—Sheeting	per lb.„	75	10	0	95	0	0
Wheat (Gazette average)	per qr.	2	12	0	2	15	8

—and in other cases there is a tendency upwards in price much more often than there is a tendency downwards.

"This general rise of price must be due either to a diminution in the supply of the quoted articles, or to an increased demand for them. In some cases there has no doubt been a short supply. Thus in wool, the diminution in the home breed of sheep has had a great effect on the price—

In 1869 the home stock of sheep was	29,538,000
In 1871 the home„ stock of„ sheep was„	27,133,000
Diminution	2,405,000
Equal to 8·1 per cent.

—and in the case of some other articles there