Years

Exports from the Netherlands Imports of British Home Produce
to Great Britain
into the Netherlands

The principal articles of export from the Netherlands to the United Kingdom in the year 1875 were butter, of the value of 1,917,9102.; live animals, principally cows and sheep, of the value of 2,124,935.; and cheese, of the value of 1,078,5941. The principal articles of British home produce imported into the Netherlands in the year 1875 were cotton goods, including yarn, of the value of 3,656,9167.; iron, wrought and unwrought, of the value of 1,563,8317.; and woollen manufactures, of the value of 2,750,0681. A considerable amount of both the exports to Great Britain and of the British imports, here enumerated, are not for consumption in the Netherlands, but pass in transit from and to Germany.

The following table shows the number and tonnage of the vessels belonging to the mercantile navy on December 31, 1875 :

:

At the close of 1858 the aggregate tonnage of the trading fleet amounted to 310,653 lasts, or 528,420 tons, and after a lapse of seven years, at the end of 1865, the total had fallen to 269,338 lasts, or

457,674 tons. At the end of 1870 there were 1,985 vessels of 264,289 lasts, or 449,291 tons; and, at the end of 1874 the mercantile navy numbered 1,827 vessels, of 511,982 tons. In the year 1875, as will be seen from the preceding table, there was a considerable increase. The following table gives total length of railways opened for traffic at the commencement of 1876, and the amount of capital spent in the construction of some of the private lines, and of the whole of the State railways:

The following table gives the number of letters, inland and foreign, conveyed by the Post Office in each of the five years, from 1871 to 1875:

The number of Post Offices at the commencement of 1876 was 1,462. The total income of the Post Office in the year 1875 amounted to 2,956,491 guilders, or 246,375l., and the expenditure to 2,079,806 guilders, or 173,3177.

The length of telegraph lines on the 1st January, 1876, was 3,440 kilometers, or 2,150 English miles, the length of wires 12,333 kilo

meters, or 7,708 English miles, and the number of offices 330." "In the year 1875, there were 2,196,959 telegrams carried, including 71,471 in transit through the kingdom.

Colonies.

The colonial possessions of the Netherlands embrace an area of 31,752 geographical square miles, or 666,756 English square miles. The total population, according to the last returns, was 24,386,991, or more than six times as large as that of the mother country.

The following table gives the area and population of the various colonial possessions, divided into three groups; first, the possessions in Asia or the East Indies; secondly, the West India islands; and thirdly, the colony of Surinam, in South America.

The population of the West India Islands is after a census taken at the end of 1874, and that of the other colonial possessions-with the exception of Timor and Sumba, Bali and Lombok, and New Guinea, which are only estimates—after enumerations of 1872-75.

Of the colonial possessions of the Netherlands, the East Indian island of Java, with the adjoining Madura, is by far the most im-portant. Administered as dependencies of Java, are the whole of the other possessions of the Netherlands in the East Indies.

The kingdom derives a considerable revenue from its colonia. possessions, arising from the sale of colonial produce, chiefly coffee, and tin. The sales are effected on what is called the Consignation system, carried out through the medium of the 'Netherlands Trading Company,' acting as agents of the Government.

Slavery ceased in the West Indian colonies on July 1, 1863. There were at this period 44,645 slaves, for all of whom the owners received compensation, the same amounting to 300 guilders, or 251., per individual, in Surinam, and to 200 guilders, or 167. 13s., in the rest of the colonies.

For a detailed account of the principal colonial possession, Java with Madura, see Part II. of the Statesman's Year-book.

Diplomatic Representatives.

1. OF THE NETHERLANDS IN GREAT BRITAIN.

Envoy and Minister-Count C. M. E. George de Bylandt, accredited June 23, Councillor of Legation-Chevalier A. de Steurs.

1871.

2. OF GREAT BRITAIN IN THE NETHERLANDS.

Envoy and Minister-Admiral Hon. Sir Edward Alfred J. Harris, K.C.B., born in 1805; entered the British navy 1821; envoy to Switzerland 1858-59 ; appointed envoy and minister to the Netherlands December 16, 1859.

Secretaries-Henry Philip Fenton; Henry Howard, C.B.; W. C. P.

Bentinck.

Money, Weights, and Measures.

The money, weights, and measures of the Netherlands, and the British equivalents, are:

MONEY.

The Guilder, or Florin, of 100 Cents = 1s. 8d., or 12 guilders to £1 sterling.

The money in general circulation is chiefly silver; but a bill which passed the States-General in the session of 1875, ordered an unrestricted coinage of ten guilder pieces in gold.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

The Netherlands adopted the French metric system of weights and

measures in 1820, retaining, however, old designations for the same. Much confusion having arisen therefrom, an Act was passed April 7, 1869, establishing from January 1, 1870, a series of new international names of weights and measures, with facultative use, during the first ten years, of the old denominations. The principal new names, aside with the old, are :—

All the other French metric denominations are adopted with trifling changes in the new code of names.

Statistical and other Books of Reference concerning the

Netherlands.

1. OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS.

Staats-Almanak voor het Koningrijk der Nederlanden. 1876. Met magtiging van de regering uit officiele opgaven zamengesteld. 8. 'S Gravenhage, 1876. Statistiek van den Handel en de Scheepvaart van het Koningrijk der Nederlanden. Uitg. d. h. departement van Financien. Fol. 'S Gravenhage, 1876. Verzameling van Consulaire en andere Berigten en Verslagen over Nijverheid, Handel en Scheepvaart. Uitgegeven door het Ministerie van Buitenlandsche Zaken. Jaargang 1876. 1 Afl. 4. 'S Gravenhage, 1876.

Verslag van den Staat der Nederlandsche Zeevisscherijen over 1874. 4. 'S Gravenhage, 1875.

Verslag van den Landbouw in Nederland over 1873, opgemaakt op last van den Minister van Binnenlandsche Zaken. 8. 'S Gravenhage, 1875.

Natuur

Nederlandsch Meteorologisch Jaarboek voor 1874. Uitgegeven door net Koninkl. Nederl. Meteorologisch. Instituut. 26° Jaargang. 4. Utrecht, 1875. Bijdragen tot de geneeskundige plaatsbeschrijving van Nederland. Uitgegeven door het departement van Binnenlandsche Zaken. 1 Stuk. kundige plaatsbeschrijving van de provincie Zeeland. 8. 'S Gravenhage, 1870. Idem van Friesland. 2o Stuk. 8. 1872. 3e Stuk. Geneeskundige plaatsbeschrijving van Gooiland. 1875. 4 Stuk. Natuurk. plaatsbeschrijving van Overijssel. 8. 'S Gravenhage, 1875.

Verslag aan den Koning van de bevindingen en handelingen van het veeartsenijkundig Staatstoezigt in 1875. 4. 'S Gravenhage, 1876.

Verslag over de verrigtingen aangaande het Armbestuur in het Koningrijk der Nederlanden over 1872.

Verslag aan den Koning van de bevindingen en handelingen van het geneeskundig Staatstoezigt in 1874. 4. 'S Gravenhage, 1875.

Geregtelijke Statistiek van het Koningrijk der Nederlanden, 1873. 4. 'S Gravenhage, 1875.

Report by Mr. Sidney Locock, Secretary of Legation, on Land Laws and Landed Property, dated The Hague, December 20, 1869; in Reports from H.M.'s Representatives respecting the Tenure of Land in the several countries of Europe.' Part I. Fol. London, 1870.