Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1890-06-12
A HOME MARKET BEST,
FOREIGN TRADE GAINED ONLY BY
INJURING HOME MARKETS.

FOREIGN TRADE GAINED ONLY BY
INJURlNG HOME MARKETS.
We Now Consume About All We Pro-
duce-High Wages Make Good Custom
ers-Only Through Protection Can High
Wages Exist.
A reliable home market is the best of
an markets. People consume more when
prosperous than when poverty stricken.
Our ffty-fve millions of prosperous
Americans afford a better market than
any other two hundred and fifty millions
in the world. As consumer every Amer
ican is undoubtedly equal to ten Chinese.
With all our increased facilities fo1
manufacturing we are not only consum-
ing nearly all we produce, but also i'm
porting and consuming more foreign
made goods per capita than in 1860 The
city of Philadelphia alone now produces
annually more yards of carpeting than
the entire United Kingdom of Great
Britain.
By reducing American labor 80 per
cent. we might compete with England;
or 66 per cent, with Germany; or 80 per
cent, with India; or 81 per cent, with
China
But in order to reach these delusive
foreign markets we shall have spoiled
our own home market, for, by cutting
down wages, we have taken away the
purchasing power of our own people.
The remarkable prosperity of the
American people is largely due to the high
wages earned and expended by wage
workers. With earnings reduced, the
purchasing power of the masses is i1nme-
diately diminished. and the people all
suffer. Not only are the laboring people
deprived of the enjoyments of life, but
all classes are crippled.
The following table shows the increase
of consumption in the United States
under twenty years of Protection:
Population. s1.iissal issG 50.isss8s g 49,
factures e .O ''' 81 100000 s55eooOo 600
Value of manufac-
lures per capita. 6200 1000
Importations per cap
Ha --.-:--..... I.O lo-lt
Total per capita 1S.D l21-I
But if we would, even at such great
sacrifice, we cannot easily secure these
coveted foreign markets. Established
trade is not easily diverted into new
channels. Foreign tariffs are against
us. Even England at the present time
is shut out of nearly every important
market in the world as effectually as
from our own. Her own colonists main
tain high tariffs against her, and her
markets are supplied by protected coun-
tries with goods cheaper and better than
her own.
Mr.. Gladstone in 1881 said England
was annually paying 1926, 100000 for
manufactures that they ought to have
made themselves. Sir Edward Wilmot,
M. P, gives ten articles of manufacture
which have cost England 81 400, ,0O0, 200,
while the operatives in these lines have
been on the verge of starvation.
| Let US, then, throwing theories to the
winds. develop and perpetuate good
home market, and be content with such
foreign trade as can be done without in
jury to home markets
In every village surrounded by farms
there should be located manufacturing
establishments of some kind that will
give employment to operatives. The
wants of these workpeople will create a
demand for food, clothing and shelter,
and the product of the farm and factory
will be ever in demand. Nothing will
be wasted in transportation, and labor
viii reap the entire harvest.
If we buy clothing in foreign mar
ket, we must send away not only our
wool and cotton from which to make
the cloth, but also other products to pay
for labor in making it.
With freights, commissions, insurance
and waste, wool and cotton cost % per
cent. more abroad than at home. Hogs
and cattle, corn and potatoes, are bulky.
and when consumed in a distant land,
cost four or five times more than at the
place of production Hence, when we
buy back the wool and cotton manufac-
tured into cloth, the hogs and cattle, corn
and potatoes, having gone into the cost
of the goods, labor must pay the cost of
transportation both ways. How can the
wage worker or farmer fail to smart
under this cruel system? How unnatural
therefore that the farms should be on
one side of the globe and the factories
on the otherl How absurd to send cot
ton and wool half around the world and
then bring them back again!
By the establishment and perpetuation
of great industries the protective system
creates home markets England prac-
ticed Protection 500 years before she
tried free trade; every one of her in
dustries, especially the manufactures
of cotton and iron. were built up by high
protective tariffs; and people are still
alive who remember when the export of
English machinery, or the tempting of
skilled workmen to emigrate, was
criminal offense. America tried free
foreign trade while England was still
high protectionist country, and came
back from repeated trials of it to the con-
viction that Protection is the only policy
| for country in process of industrial de-
velopment.
The marvellous growth of manufac-
lures in the United States, under twenty
years of Protection, is shown by the fol-
| lowing table:
1880 1880
! Values Of manufac
lures ............ s.. .s7o.OOOOOo $500, 100000
Value of manufac-
lures per inhabf
|
| Persons employed in
manu- features Of
ell kinds -. ...... 1.311.000 2,739 900
Wages paid. ...... 400,0O0O00 99O,O0OO00
| Capital invested in
manufactures ..-.. 1,040, 100000 2,405, 100000
The total manufactured products of
Great Britain in 1882 being only s4,O91,-
600 900, 1T will be seen that the United
States now leads the world in manufac-
| ture.
The values of total industries in 1880
were as follows, the United States stand
ing first:
| United States .. ........ $11, ,405, ,OOO, 900 |
Great Br1t2ln-
France ....,...................... 8S40,OOl0O0 |
Germany. ...........'..s.s..ss.s.. oooUVVO,VW
Russia ......... =. .............. 4650000,00o |
The Mckinley tariff bill is intended |