Northern tribune. [volume] (Cheboygan, Mich.) 1875-1885, 1879-10-11
THE UNITED STATES AS A CREDl.
TOR NATION.
From the Chicago Inter Ocean.

From the Chicago Inter Ocean.
The increasing Importance which the
United States is obtaining as an export
country must result in devising new
and better means of meeting the de-
mands upon us. We showed, few days
since, that the amount paid for freights
had been largely Overestimated, but
there will doubtless be new devices soon
to reduce even these. Among the i'm
prOvements soon to take place may be
the shipment of wheat in the shape of
-four, that being the form which
used to prevail many years ago, the
form of grain being latter day innO-
Walton. Nor do we anticipate much i'm
pediment from foreign tariffs upon the
imports of our food. Manufacturers
mig ht be kepteOut in that way, but. not
the means of cheap subsistence. Public
opinion in countries where the mass of
the people have little purchasing power;
where the soil is owned by the few, or
where its money value per acre is so
high as to prevent the growth of low
priced crops ;sand where both toll and
privatiOn are the lot of the multitude,
would not long tolerate such duties on
bread and meat as would exclude or
greatly enhance the cost of these arti-
cles.
Meanwhile, unless Congress should
yield to free-trade pressure, and revise
our customs laws in the interest of i'm
portatiOns, it is not likely that we shall
largely augment the quantities of man
ufactures brought into this country. As
regards most of the raw materi-
ais requisite to supply the arts
of production, we have ourselves the
needed resources. There is no real ne
cessity to 90 abroad for them. Our man
ufacturing industry thanks to the pro-
tective system-has been SO developed
and diversified that, in numerous
branches, we already are more thai able
to fully:prOvide for our domestic wants.
Further development in other depart
ments is proceeding at rate which
promises soon to make us self dependent
in those also. In all the view there is
no probability land only the possibility
involved in prOf1igate and ruinOus
lowering of the standard of tariff pro-
tectiOn) that our imports will increase
more rapidly than:Our exports. Rather,
there is reasonable prospect that our ex-
cessive manufactures some years hence
will overflow into foreign markets, add
ing growing volume to our steady ex-
ports of breadstuffs and provisions.
ALI the circumstances which surround
the position of the United States relative
ly to other countries favor the cOnclu-
sion that heavy excess of exports over
imports of merchandise has become for
us an established fact. In our turn we
shall become the creditor nation of the
world. Our securities of every sort
national, state, municipal and rail-
road-will continue to pour toward
our Shore until there are no more to
come. shipments of gold and silver,
to liquidate balances of trade, will
continue to arrive from time to time,
swelling to considerable proportions, as
now, when the crops are moving out of
the country, and largely subsiding after
the movement is complete. AS, mean
while, there will be nothing to take
away the yield of our mines at home,
their treasures will accumulate and eX-
pand the volume of our circulating me-
dunn.
The importing streams of coin and
bullion will, of course, have the effect
of greatly disturbing the monetary sys-
TENS of the nations from which they
flow out. These peoples, therefore, will
experience the effects which result from
a contraction of currency. Then new
factors will enter into the trade prob
lem. What consequences, what changes,
what reforms may arise out of such
complications, though very interesting
questions, are too far distant, and too
much enveloped in contingencies, to JUS
tify much more than conjecture. 1t is
enough to say at present that, amid such
a conflict of circumstances, interests,
and innovations, something radical must
take place.