Omaha daily bee., 1889-10-25

SPANISH AMERICAN COMMERCE.
There has just been issued by the gov
ernment an elaborate work by MIR.
William E. Curtis, representing the
state department in charge of the tour
of the delegates to the American
conference, which presents most COM
plete and comprehensive statement of
our commerce with Spanish America,
and gives much other information re-
lating to this subject which is of pecu-
liar interest at this time.
From this volume it is learned
that the total population of
Spanish America, including the West
Indies and Brazil, is nearly equal to that
OF the United States, being over fifty
millions. A very small proportion of
this population consists of non-pro-
ducers, there being only about half
million Indians in South and Central
America, so that nearly every inhab
liant is contributor, directly or indi-
rectly, TO the exports of the country in
which he lives, and to degree con-
sumer of imported merchandise.
The exports OF these countries
are raw materials, their ma
tural or cultivated products. The i'm
| ports are manufactured articles from
Europe and the United States. In
several Of them, as Mexico, Guatemala,
| Chill and Brazil, there is some manu-
| featuring, but the product is not equal
to the home demand, which has to be
met by importations. In fact. in none of
| these countries are the mechanical in
| dustries of such extent as to merit seri-
| GUS consideration in trade calculations,
adding, as they do, but very little to
the wealth and commerce of the coun-
| tries. A few steamers would carry the
entire annual product Of the factories
of the two southern continents, and the
increase is so small as to offer no COM
petition to foreign producers. But in
the resources OF agriculture and in the
production OF raw material all OF these
countries are rich, and in their devel-
opment most of them are making IA pid
progress. Thus Chilli, the Argen.
tine Republic and Uruguay
are exporters of breadstuffs
and are also large producers of sheep
and cattle, in which they are likely to
become at no very distant time cOmpet-
itors of the United States in the Euro
pean markets. With the exception Of
pork and dairy products, In which the
South American countries will never
be able to compete with US owing tC
climatic conditions, and of which they
will continue to be large and increas
ing consumers, those countries will
eventually have sufficient local sup
ply of food products and became active
rivals for the trade this country now
enjoys in Europe.
The trade of the fifty millions ol
people south of the Rio Grande and the
Gulf OF Mexico amounts to one Thousand
millions of dollars annually, nearly
evenly divided between exports and i'm
ports, and in the countries south Of The
Tropic of Capricorn, those of the tenn
perate soil OF South America
the foreign commerce is in
creasing with amazing rapidity. o
the large and increasing import trade
of these southern countries, whicl
doubtless last year exceeded five hun
dred million dollars in value, tn
United States got only a very small
I | proportion. About sixty-nine million
, dollars was the value of our exports I
| those countries, while we purchase
, from them products to tn
! value of over one hundred an
seventy-fve million dollars. /
' other words, We bought thirty-fv
a per cent OF what the countries south +,
US had 10 sell aud sold them less tha
fifteen per cent OF what they purchased
over eighty-ive per cent OF their in
Q ports coming from Europe. This fairl
Il a. ha. ~ Tor fha Il.ls