Quite a different effect the fall had on the trade and industry of the country. It was in a flourishing state as [pg 99] compared with the affairs of the Government or with the trade and industry of a gold-standard country like England. Throughout the period of falling silver there was said to be a progressive decline relatively to population in the employment afforded by various trades and industries in England. The textile manufactures and the iron and coal trade were depressed as well as the other important trades, including the hardware manufactures of Birmingham and Sheffield, the sugar-refining of Greenock, Liverpool, and London, the manufactures of earthenware, glass, leather, paper, and a multitude of minor industries.¹⁸¹ The depression in English agriculture was so widespread that the Commissioners of 1892 were “unable to point to any part of the country in which [the effects of the depression] can be said to be entirely absent,” and this notwithstanding the fact that the seasons since 1882 “were on the whole satisfactory from an agricultural point of view.”¹⁸² Just the reverse was the case with Indian trade and industry. The foreign trade of [pg 100] ¹⁸¹ Report by Dunraven, Farrer, Muntz, and Lubbock in the _Final Report of the Royal Commission on Depression of Trade and Industry_, par. 54, C. 4893, ¹⁸² _Final Report of the Royal Commission on Agricultural Depression in England_, C. 8540 of 1897, par. 28, TABLE XIV _Imports and Exports (Both Merchandise and Treasure)_¹⁸³