Onco ■more a steady decline has characterised the market for tho combers' and spinners' produce, the value of winch appears almost independent of the price of the raw material. When the latter recedes, it is indeed always a sighal for tops and yarns receding likewiso ; but wnen it rises, no corresponding improvement, follows in.the value of manufactures, which, on tho contrary, often answer with a fresh decline. The cause of this protracted anomaly has often and justly been traced tojthc undue expansion of business which followed tho close of tho late war ; and it is indeed only by reverting j to that period that a i exnlanation of tho course of the market cvi be found. The woollen industry at that I time, in common with other trades, experienced s. sud don development wholly disproportionate to the actual requirements, lartro as these latter were. An artificial want of the raw material, independent of actual con sumption, was thus created, and a ruinous amount of competition introduced into the industry. Had a larse increase in the supply of the law material taken place, simu'toneously leaving wool at n moderate valun, tho situation might by virtue of the cheap ;r juice have become less strained, but tho production of wool, which in former years had ex anded rapidly, became almosi stxtionary at that juncture, and prices rose to a hitfh level in cousequence. On one point alone the industry has throughout been fortunately situated, and that is in the exceedingly favourable in fluenco fashion has cxci ciscd on the consuinptien of wool >n materials. Had this been otherwise, it is difficult to soe how all tho new machinery could have rein employed, or, if worked, to what proportions the stocks of goodx must have accumulated. The trade may thus be briefly described as suffering during the past three yeartt from weakness, consequent upon too sudden growth, and the pa«t year in particu lar, as only re-producintr in very similar features the experiences of (1874 and 1873. 