The port of Montevideo alone received 88.54 per cent of the imports and cleared 57.1 per cent of the exports in the foreign commerce of the country in 1890. Its proportion in 1887, was 94.74 and 63.31 per cent respectively. In 1891, the imports show a decrease from those of 1890 of about 40 per cent, as is seen by the following table: The falling off in imports in 1890, 1891, and 1892 is due to the financial crisis prevailing in the country, but an increase in the exports, except in 1892, will be noticed in the following table, as the result of necessity for the payment of foreign indebtedness. The following exhibits the value of exports from Uruguay by Of the total importation from the United States in 1890, lumber, kerosene, and wheat (including flour) formed about 60 per cent. Out of a total importation of $3,770,977 of dry goods, only $48,355 were from the United States, and the same country supplied comestibles to the value of only $188,324 out of a total importation of $6,777,837. In the imports from Great Britain for 1890, cotton goods figure for $1,153,087, while the importation of the same from the United States amounted to only $20,529. For the first six months of 1892, the imports at Montevideo amounted to $9,116,729.59 and the exports to $15,828,262.04. Official statistics show that during the first quarter of the calendar year 1893, the imports of the Republic amounted to $5,069,854.51 and the exports to $8,234,594.87. For the same period in 1892, the imports were $4,796,936 and the exports $8,398,302. The following figures (cents omitted) show the customs returns of the Republic of Uruguay for the past half of the current year, 1893, as compared with the corresponding period of 1892: There is, it thus appears, a decrease for the current year of 27,293, The Montevideo Times condenses some remarks on this subject by the Siglo as follows: "The result might be disheartening to those who had hopes for a rapid reaction, without counting on three successive years of bad harvests and low prices, but it is not so for those who held the opinion that when the foreign debt was rearranged in London bottom had not been touched and further falls in revenue and consumption were to be feared. Facts have now shown that, were it not for such natural calamities as drought, locusts, etc., which defy human forethought, there would certainly have been an increase of revenue, for even with this, it has remained practically stationary. But even with the revenue in this stationary condition, the result should be tranquilizing for the great problems of financial regularity, so long as during the remainder of the present presidency and in that which follows, restraint is practiced in public expenditure, and some advance is made, even if slowly, in the great task of establishing administrative morality. With the $8,500,000 yielded by the custom-house and nearly $5,000,000 arising from other sources, there is sufficient to attend to the payment of all the national obligations and even enough to prepare to take advantage of the first increase in the revenue to relieve the country from the burden of some of the recent taxes which hinder the development of its resources." COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES WITH URUGUAY. The statistics of Uruguayan commerce divide the imports into the following classes: Liquors, comestibles, tobacco and cigars, dry goods, readymade clothing, machinery, etc., and miscellaneous. The following is a table published officially at Montevideo, showing the commerce of Uruguay with the United States from 1882 to 1891: |