Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1889-07-03
Abundant Harvests, But Limited Markets.

Abundant Harvests, But Limited Markets.
The real situation of our country with
respect both to increasing agricultural
production and manufactured goods, is
becoming better understood than it has
been. Year after year we have observed
our chief markets for breadstufs and pro-
visions in Europe particularly in the
United Kingdom) to be waning growing
small by degrees" but, to us, not "beauti-
fully less" What is to become of our
raw material and food.supplies in the abb
sence of enlarged trade with foreign coun-
tries should be the question OF the day
We must recover our export trade with the
Old World, not only as it was, but COM
mensurately with our enormously increas-
ing production, else the surplus of the
grain of our fields and the meat-supplies of
expanding production will rot in our store
houses.
The annually increasing population of
the country is but feeble addition to the
necessary demand to make agricultural
production remunerative, and the enlarged
output Of every description of manufactured
articles overburdens many features of our
domestic commerce without making the
slightest impression on the still annually
increasing surplus of bread and meat-sup-
plies.
If the proposition to tske the manu-
featured goods of other countries for our
raw material and food-supplies be pre-
sented, it would be declined by our people.
Then, to meet the difficulty which still
confronts us, if another proposition, such
as lowering the cost of production of manu-
featured articles, that we might enter into
foreign competition successfully, would
meet the same fate. Dwarfng both agri-
cultural and manufactured productions,
creating no more than the actual wants Of
the country shall demand, is, in word,
self-destruction. To depend on our home
markets, to relieve the country of its in
creasing agricultural production, after al,
lowing for the apparently comparatively
diminutive foreign demand, is to rest oul
stability upon broken reed. That propo
sition is wholly unacceptable and at vari
ance with the aspirations and enterprising
spirit of our people.
We are fast losing the good hold we once
had in supplying South America with
breadstuffs. The tood-buying countries O.
Europe are dropping out of line, and fol
the present we hold the West India islands
with feeble tenure as customers for food
supplies. This is truly gloomy picture
to contemplate, and that too in full view
of the brightest crop-prospects2which evel
offered their hopeful blessings oyer the ex
tent of our country.
Of our American, Or patent-roller-p
cess flour, the people of the Old World
relishing the superior bread it makes, sool
became to prefer. The merchant miller
in the grain-growing countries, as well a
in the chief commercial cities of Europe
are rapidly refitting their establishment
with the machinery to make this -four
The result was sensibly felt in the manne
in which the expected active demand TO
the -four during the present milling season
now near its close, failed to be realized
The direction which the surplus bread
stuffs produced on our Pacific coast ar
taking, and annually more decisively so, il
marked feature to be considered with thu
matter respecting our foreign commerce, a
that trade concerns our Atlantic Coast ex
ports. To buy where she can sell is tn
rule of England, which nearly all the coun
tries of Europe are adopting. The United
Kingdom has bought, and will continue t,
buy literally of our Pacific Coast produo
ton, because that is a reciprocal trade t.
meet the purchase. And in that connec
ton, the remark is not out Of place her
and now to say that the yield of Californi
alone is estimated this year at seventy mil
lion bushels Of wheat, and there is, also,
corresponding increase in Oregon an
Washington, and in the widening interio
having outlets to foreign commerce on on
Pacific Coast.
Establish and build up as we may-an
this we should not by any means neglect
every proper manufacturing industry, thos
features of American enterprise alone wi
not render the country prosperous or Il
population contented. Our agricultul
must become more lucrative, and Il
hardships it endures less oppressive.
The recognition of gambling teatur,
controlling our breadstuffs and provision
trade, drove the purchasing countries
Europe out of our markets as far as such
miserable policy, exercising baneful il
huences, could affect it. In British Indi
In the Islands of the Ocean, in Austral
Brazil, the Argentine Republic, and whe
ever British control and capital could il
fuence production and strengthen ente
prises in behalf of wheat-culture, hith,
the commercial power and capital
Britain freely flowed. The objects wei
apparent, and our commercial interest
dependent upon our agriculture, felt tt
fatal effects that struck deep blows into i
prosperity and weakened the foundation
upon which it rested.
Now, when we are adding largely to OIL
surplus of supplies, for which there is I
home-market, we look in vain to our Of
customers for relief. Abundance is foun
elsewhere than in the United States. Or
surplus has become more of plaything wit
British sagacity than anything else,-to h
taken or not, as pleasure, rather than NJ
cessity, may dictate. The dwindling fiji
ures representing the comparative export
of wheat and -four and meat, in view Of OF
increased productions, furnish strikin
commentary upon the enterprise of OF
country, which only furnished one steame
of America registry in the shipment {
wheat to the United Kingdom.