| OCR Text |
Show COMMERCE. SHIPPING AND TARIFF. The Bureau of Statistics has been looking up the record of the world's consumption annually oi imported manufactured goods. It amounts in round numbers, to $4,000,000,000 of which Great Britain, Germany, France and the United States supply, in round numbers of $3,000,000,000. The same authority author-ity gives the gain made by each of these countries coun-tries since 1880: From the United Kingdom from $904 540,000 to $1,142,595,000, in 1893, or 18.46 per cent. From $339,186,000 France increased to $4.05.-794.000 $4.05.-794.000 in 1903, or 19.64 per cent. Germany shows o increase from $460,279,000 to $780,926,000, or r J 66 per cent in the same time, while the advance of the United States has been from $102,856,01 ta $452,445,629 or 339.86 per cent. The increase 'in gain has been for the United Kingdom $178-055,000; $178-055,000; for France, $66,608,000; for Germany, $320,647,000, and for the United States $349,589 614. Our great gain dates from the engineer's strike in England in 1896. The showing would be full of encouragement except that pearly all of ours 's carried away in foreign ships, received by foreigners, foreign-ers, and sold by foreigners. We are building u no great trading stations in foreign countries; the freight money paid out is taken from our volume of money and swells the volume of English o French or German money, and it amounts to more than all the gold and silver dug from our mines every year, saved at home for a single ten years and it would add to our circulating medium quite $2,000,000,000, and would enhance immensely the, value of property all the way from ocean to ocean. Why our statemen cannot see this and proceed accordingly is a wonder of wonders. There is anther feature to the business. Our flag Is not seen in foreign ports; the men of South America, South Africa, Australia, India and China ore not reminded of the Great Republic by the presence of her flag in their ports In their thought it is England that rules from sea to sea: the United States in thought is not so big as either France or Germany. , Another thought comes in this connection. How; many men must be employed to prepare this tremendous tre-mendous volume of merchandise for a foreign raaj-ket? raaj-ket? If we say that each worker produces $1,000 per annum of these goods, it means that on that account more than four hundred and fifty thousand men are lemployed. Our foreign trade is but a small percentage of our home trade Well, suppose sup-pose the arm of patriotism should be withdrawn from around these wage-earners think of the distress dis-tress that would follow Of course our Democratic friends say it would not be, but they said the same twelve years ago, and it was. Their platform Is quite as full of malice as was taeir platform twelve years ago, their candidate is quite as precise and not so broad as the candidate of 1802. Will the t6ilers of Utah, of Idaho, of Nevada, and the other Intermountain States take any eJaaaaes this yean? |
