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Show WHAT IS THE MATTER? Why is it that the trade of the United States with South America is of such slow growth I In 1S93 the value of American products exported to that continent was $32,600,000. In 1903 it was $41,100,000. That is a gain of only about 12 V2 per cent m eleven years. During that period there was an Increase of 50 per cent in exports to Europe Eu-rope and of 250 per cent in those to Asia and Oceauica. In 1S93 the value of commodities shipped to other parts of this continent principally princi-pally .Mexico and Canada was $119,000,000, and last year it was $215,000,000, says the Chicago Tribune. The American enterprise which has discovered new markets in other continents, or increased the capacity of old markets, seems to have let South America religiously alone, or has found the task, of building up trade there one which is beyond its strength. The Latin-American states are gaining gain-ing in population. With the exception of Venezuela and Colombia they have been quite free from revolutions revo-lutions of late, and have enlarged the volume of their exports and imports, but they are little more inclined to trade with the United States than they were ten years ago. It must be confessed that this country is not increasing its consumption of South American products. In 1893 it bought $102,000,000 worth, and 1903 '$107,000,000 worth. Of last year's imports the two items of coffee aud india rubber, from Brazil alone represented $03,000,000. South American trade is worth cultivating, but while Germans and Englishmen seein to know how to cultivate it, Americans do not. It ought to be easier to drum up customers in Argentina or Brazil Bra-zil than in China, but apparently it is not. There is no difficulty about selling goods to Mcxicaps, but there is when it comes to selling to Chileans or Venezuelans. The larger trade with Mexico is due to the extensiqn of the American railroad system into that country. It may be that the Panama canal will stimulate commercial intercourse be-t be-t - tween the United States and the .states on the west coast of South America, but without the canal ca-nal that intercourse should be more extensive than it is. The slow growth 'of American trade with the southern half of this hemisphere is inexplicable and a little mortifying. ix : . |
