Show IMPORTS AND EXPORTS Our morning contemporary yesterday yester-day had an article on Imports Export Ex-port and Profits which was n gem It copied tho figures from the Treasury department that In the business of 1S99 I this country exported goods to the amount of 170000000 more than It Imported Im-ported and added this According to the statement of administration mathematicians mathe-maticians AVO received from abroad 176000000 In gold and says that Is I manifestly absurd In the first place it docs not mean that at all hence the charge of absurdity falls Iat I means that the goods sold by the United States exceeded the goods bought by 470000000 I adds that In I fact gold has been going abroad ever since the beginning of the South Amer Icun war We presume it means I South African Var and that Is correct What It all means is this that of the balance of trade In our favor In 1S99 after deducting the dividends and Interest In-terest which this counlry every CUlpa CUl-pa abroad It left about 0000000 to tlo credit of the United States What was not met by 1 i return of United States securities Is still due to Individuals 11 this country In the samo way the 5CO0000 0 balance of j trade for the last fiscal year after deducting the interest I and dividends due to tho Old World Is1 due this country orto Individuals In this country coun-try except what may have been taken up by a return of American securities hp fact Is that for the first century of our existence as n Nation whenever men had any great enterprise to tloat 01 any railroad projected they depended de-pended on selling their bonds In the Old World Joe i money with which to proceed In that way several billions of dollars of Amcrlcan securities arc now held In the Old World and the Interest has to be met Then there IK another drain which not many people realize but which Is believed to amoUnt to 5100000000 this last year and lint Is the money spent by 1 Americans In Kurope This last Ilscal year It was particularly heavy because of the rush to the Worlds fair und because of the fact that during the Spanish war not ninny Americans went abroad Then there Is a burst of wisdom In our neighbor which Is beautiful to see I Is so much of a gem that we copy It entire as follows The dishoncatv of claiming as profit tho excess of exuorts over imports can be Kliown best by historical precedents When Rome owned most of the known world her imports weie enormous her exports small Did that difference represent 0 balance against her None but tho Ignorant Ig-norant make such a claim She was mistress mis-tress of the naUons They had to send their grain their manufactured goods or the products of mines to Homo Their exports were much greater than their Imports from all sources but they grow poor by tho process That Is an argument that came down with tile Democratic party for sixty jears as an argument against a protective pro-tective tariff It came down until the tariff vindicated Itself and left the Democrats helpless in their argument that Is all except our contemporary When Rome owned most of the known I world her Imports were enormous and her exports small But the next question ques-tion Is a daisy Did that difference represent the balance against her The logic Is something fine I she owned the whole world how was thereto there-to be any profit or loss that did not affect af-fect her through all her dominions When Home owned the whole world It was simply n case of perpetual rapacity rapa-city on her part Her young men went to foreign countries and robbed them and 5cnt the proceeds to Rome and as soon as they got rich they followed the Plunder and went to Rome I was slm ply n case of spoliation on a more gigantic gi-gantic scale than Spain ever used toward to-ward Cuba or the Philippines and It has no more to do with the trade between be-tween the United States and the outside out-side world than has the question whether Andrees balloon was lost In the sea or on the land Great Britain has or rather her people peo-ple have been loaning the United States money and buying property In the United States and throughout the civilized nations ever since Waterloo The result Is that nearly all the motions mo-tions have sent their products lo England Eng-land to pay tho Interest and the dividends divi-dends our Nation dfd 1t for many and many a year but during this last four years our exports exceeded the Imports by about 1000000000 That has probably prob-ably taken up 1000000000 in securities lt has paid the expenses o tourists for four or five years and still there Is an enormous balance due to Individuals on this side from the Old World The export of gold as c rule is governed by the rates of exchange on tho part of the Bank of England When the rate of exchange is raised too high then gold begins to flow from this country because it Is moro profitable to send It abroad than to keep It at home But there has been no mistake in the figures fig-ures and thb dofference between the exports and Imports of this country is to the credit of tho United States either In the form of cash due her or In securities returned from tho Old World to her Our neighbor says hat the profit n moro than offset by freight paid Interest Inter-est and dividends due to Great Britain alb paid by American exports or shipments ship-ments of gold The freight charges do not come In because goods shipped abroad are estimated al their value when they leave this coast and not when they arrive on the other side But that brings to mind the fact Unit had It not been for the Democratic party standing In the way of all efforts to Increase our merchant marine tho balance of trade In our favor last year and the year before would have been 100000000 more That party has fought every method which cIVIlized 1 cIVIl-ized I nations adopt In order to buildup build-up a merchant marine they have fought it steadily since steam was first Invented and the first knockdown to gtcam tranHportatlci In the United Stales that IB I steam ocean transpor tqtlon came In Buchanans Administration Adminis-tration when the subsidy was taken from thd Vanderbilt And the Collins I lines at the same lime Great Brltaln advanced her lnc1 subsidy to the Cunard I ers with the result that now the Cunarders have sixty ships running to all the chief ports of the wcnld and America has one line across the Atlantic At-lantic l and one or two across the Pacific Pa-cific The final conclusion of the Herald Her-ald is that the alleged profits are more than offset by the draft on America for Interest and dividends dud Great Britain The Interest nnd dividends divi-dends a we explained above amount to about 5150000000 or 170000000 a year That Is to be deducted after this deduction however the balance sheets show more balance In our favor I fa-vor during the last fiscal year than was retained during the first one hundred hun-dred Curs of our existence as a nation |