Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 4).djvu/173

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TRADE AND COMMERCE
157

brellas. But it will be understood that many other miscellaneous goods appear in the trade returns.

Exports. Burma has valuable products to exchange for imports and finds markets in all quarters of the globe. Last year the value of the private export trade amounted to nearly £53,000,000, showing a substantial balance in favour of the province. Rice is scattered over the world in lavish profusion. Besides all parts of the British Empire, more than twenty foreign countries compete in this trade. In a good year the quantity exported rises to 2 1/2 millions of tons. Last year it was somewhat less, but the value amounted to £31,679,200. In years of scarcity, India takes a large proportion, sometimes more than half of the total. Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, and the United Kingdom are the largest foreign buyers.

Next in order, but at a long interval, are mineral oils and associated products. Of mineral oils, some 160 million gallons; of paraffin wax some 25,000 tons; of candles some five million pounds, are exported yearly to the aggregate value of about £7,250,000. There are, it need hardly be said, fluctuations. Last year the quantity of oils and wax exported was less than usual, while there was a decrease which may be permanent in the export of candles. By far the largest quantity of mineral oils is absorbed by India; practically all the kerosine and nearly half the benzine and petrol.

Teak has long been a staple export. Last year the quantity sent out of the Province amounted to 227,297 cubic tons valued at over £3,750,000. In other years, the quantity has barely exceeded 100,000 tons. Large exports to India to some extent accounted for the high figures of last year.

When the potential mineral resources of the country are remembered, the trade in metals is disappointing. The export of tin does not greatly exceed in value £100,000; wolfram was exported during the War to the value of over £1,000,000 a year, but hardly more than £12,000 worth