“1. Conditions of foreign commerce and internal trade, manufacturers, mechanical industries, agriculture, etc., especially—
“(a) Statistics of exports and imports, of shipping and of revenue and expenditure of the country; amount of public debts, national and local; rates of taxation, character of taxable basis, how taxation is levied and collected, amount of taxation per capita, etc.; value, actual value in exchange, and also as measured by the dollar of the United States; changes in purchasing power of the currency; banking—new systems, especially of savings banks and of banks as associations for lending money to agriculturists, mechanics, and factory operatives; public loans and the matters of finance affecting the industry or commerce of the country; commercial credits—rates and periods usually granted to foreign purchasers, and those expected from foreign shippers; trade usages and peculiarities; special demands of consumers as to demand and quality of goods or supplies already in use or capable of being introduced among them, with suggestions as to the best and most economical style of packing to conform to local requirements of sale and transportation.
“(b) Improvement of old and development of new industries, including inventions or discoveries, and the result obtained from the practical application of them.
“(c) Introduction of inventions made in the United States or imitations of them; application of business or mechanical methods employed in the United States.
“(d) Importation and use of food supplies, raw materials and manufactures from the United States, or the possibility of introducing them, and local or race requirements to make them acceptable to foreign consumers.
“2. Facilities for direct and indirect communication with the United States—establishment of new ocean or international railroad lines or agencies; development of internal transportation lines—railroads, highways and steamboat or other carriage on rivers and canals, or betterment of them; opening up of new trade routes or abandonment of old ones; changes in transportation rates, both freight and passenger, which are of general interest to commerce; bounties or subsidies to railroads and shipping.