whereas, with a due allowance for the value of gold exported without record during these years, this average would, probably, be increased by about £10 per head. Let us here institute a comparison. Amongst the old European states, our own country is now happily distinguished alike for its commercial laws and the extent of its external commerce. The export trade of the United Kingdom, which, during the last three years, has been at the rate of one hundred millions sterling annually, may be estimated to be at from £3 to £4 per head of the population. Britain had attained to only about £2 to £3 per head, until experiencing in its commerce, after the year 1852, the full effect of the Australian gold discoveries; and this remarkable and sudden difference is undoubtedly due, in the greatest part, to the enlarged demands of the Australian market, and the stimulus of Australian gold.
"The wealth or resources of commercial countries must not, of course, be indiscriminately estimated by the direct ratio of a larger export, because such countries may at the same time be, more or less, poor, as to those most ordinary home productions in which a country of far less commercial pretence may abound to superfluity. Such a deficiency in the former, although that deficiency may not argue any impolicy under the circumstances of the case, yet, as it must be made good from the exports, it so far diminishes their amount, and, therefore, the amount of that fund which we commonly associate with
