Ii.—: Clothes and Underclothes.

The export of clothes and underclothes stands ninth in the total of French exports. The following are the figures reckoned on an annual average over the three years preceding the 1892 tariff:—

The tariff came into operation on February 1, 1892. Passing over this and the following year to allow for the disturbances caused by a change in system, we find:—

That is, during the period following the 1892 tariff there was a fall, relative to the preceding period, of 18 per cent., and even in the second period a fall of 10 per cent.; that the excess of the average of the three years 1900-02 over the average of 1889-91 was not due to, but in spite of, Protection; and 1903 shows a return to the figures of 1894-96.