St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1878-12-06
Use for devoting this letter to its con-


from that time on was large in COM
parisOn with our population. American
enterprise was prOverbial. Ships with
the stars and stripes floating from their
lofty spars plowed every sea. Our taxes
were light, and we made up by energy
for the comparative lack of capital of
of our merchants. We bearded English
commerce all over the world, and sought
out remote and unfrequented markets
which our competitors had left untOuch-
ed. At last our war came. The great
armies needed vast supplies, and in
supplying them and the people whom
an inflated currency had rendered ex-
travagant, our manufacturers and mer-
chants lost their hold of the foreign
markets which they had cultivated with
great pains and care. "Our great home
Market" was the motto. Capital poured
in for such profitable investment. Fac
tories multiplied, improvements in ma
chinery were daily devised, and produc-
ton rose to an enormous volume. Then
came the reaction. Taxes grew heavier
and heavier, while our means, national
and individual, grew lighter and light
er. Manufacturers kept up the scale OF
their operations, and the foreign outlets
for goods being closed, the latter COM
menced to pile up, prices broke away
and commenced falling through appar-
emily illimitable space, and then arose
the general cry of cover production"
We have all suffered by the past years
of business depression and disappoint-
ment. The hard times have been, by
far, the hardest ordeal our country has
had to pass through since it was coun-
try. l need not draw picture of its de-
mOralizatiOn and its suffering. Their
visible presentment is too familiar to us
all. Neither is there any necessity for
going into all the causes of the general
paralysis. 1t is enough for my present
purpose to point out that had we pre-
served the foreign trade of the last gen
Grafton no such anomalous and utterly
deplorable state of things could have
so long oppressed us, and to call atten-
ton to the marked improvement in the
cOuntry's condition during this past
year, the very era of our re-awakenlng
on this subject.
1t was to aid to the movement of our
surplus productions abroad, for the
double purpose of turning the balance
of trade in our favor, and of keeping
mp remunerative prices at home, giving
employment to every honest man will
ing to work, and enabling such to pur-
chase not only the bare necessaries of
life, but to surround himself and his
family with the comforts and conven-
fences which go so far to make life worth
having, that the export revival now
vigorously in progress was begun; and
if persisted in it will do its work.
If any proof be required of the close
relations of export and prosperity, |
point to the fact that the long term OF
stagnation and starvation now passing
away includes a series of years when in
material wealth our country was never
richer. Never have we seen more
abundant crops. Never were our mines
more productive, our inventors more
ingenious, our resources more magnlh-
cent. Our cereal crops are grown in
fields of thousands of acres each, and
cultivated and gathered by wonderful
machinery.
But our great glory is not to lie in
our furnishing merely the rudiments OF
the worlds wealth. Why should we
produce raw cotton, grain and metals
for foreign ships to take to foreign lands
and foreign manufacturers to work up
for worldwide commerce which we
neglect? That is what we have been
doing. But, fortunately, the day of that
folly is past. Our exports of manufac-
tured goods have been largely extend
ed of late, The English papers have
tocmeu with artiolRs expressing Tears vi
our successful rivalry, and William
Ewart Gladstone, the great British
statesman, has conceded the fOrmida-
bleness of our opportunities and incipi-
ent achievement, in Il recent paper en-
titled, "Kin Beyond Sea-" which has
evoked such storm of wrath and alarm
among his countrymen, and which ha'
been so extensively quoted that it is un,
necessary to do more than to allude tC
it here.
In the dry goods trade, though the
Boston merchants of thirty years age
had no little export business, the tradi
ton alone of export was left, the large
profits at home during the war, and tn,
total cutting off of our shipping inter
ests having combined to cause its entire
loss. That has revived. So far this
year we have exported from the ports
of New York and Boston alone, no less
than 10000 packages of dOmestics
against "a 900 in 1871, and against tn,
merest nominal shipments, hardly
amounting to that total altogether, o
the preceding ten years. We have sole
our cottons at Manchester itself below
the cost of British goods, and the char
acter of our work has received the higl
| - Dfh ox hro do ,,,, Il
ulently affixed to the inferior produc
lions of British and German factories
to be palmed off on the natives of Indi;
and China.
In machinery, ETC., it is very mucl
the same way. Almost wherever intro
duced the American goods are recog
nized as superior to the European pro
auctions of the same kind. American
handiwork in general is ingenious, an,
strong and graceful, and very perfect.
adapted to its function; and thus it i
that we have obtained, and are con
stantly Strengthening our hold on tn
non-producing markets. 1t is noticeable
too, that it is the better classes respect
lively of the numerous American spe
cialties that have been pushed tn,
most vigorously, and have found TIN
greatest favor abroad. 1t is the Nc
Cormick reaper that lays low the grail
fields of the world, and Buffalo mad
machinery that brushes the cane, an,
prepares for market the rice and coffe,
of the tropics. Steinway pianos occup,
the favored position in the private con
cert rooms of Queen Victoria's favorit
resorts at BalmOral and Osborne, in tn
salons of the haute nOblesse all over Eu
rope, and even make musical the cabi
net of the heather King of Burmah
The Howe scales, the standard of GU
own custom houses and post offices ar
in general use in many parts of Europe