The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-09-05
OUR FOREIGN COMMERCE.
1t Is Larger During Protection Periods
Than Free Trade Times and is Increasing
Per Capita Annually.

| 1t Is Larger During Protection Period,
Than Free Trade Times and In Increasing
Per Capita Annually.
There are three facts-which any one
may ascertain by consulting the official
reports-that utterly disprove the posi-
ton taken by tariff reformers respect
ing our foreign trade.
First, our manufacturing industries
have not yet supplied our home market,
as manufactures valued at more than
$3.50, 900, 900, that ought to be made
here, were imported last year.
Second, no foreign nation buys of us
simply because we buy of it, but every
nation buys where it can purchase to
the best advantage, having regard to
price and means Of transportation.
1t would seem as If the fact that In
the last fiscal year the United Kingdom
bought Of US products to the value OF
SS79, 900, 131, while we bought of the
United Kingdom products TO the value
of only SITS, 269, OCT; and that in the
same period we bought of Brazil pro-
ducts to the value of $50 403, s04, while
Brazil bought of US goods to the value
Of only s9,276,511. ought to put an end
to the 'if-you-don't-b uy-of-me-I- +
buy-of-you" theory Of foreign trade.
And third, our foreign commerce, as
measured by our exports and imports,
has been proportionately larger under
our protective policy since the close of
the war than under the revenue tariff
policy before the war, and has increased
more rapidly in the last quarter Of a
century than that Of any other nation
In the decade from 1851 to 1851, under
tariff constructed on the theory that
1t is benefit to the country to dimin-
ish duties on articles which we can
make or produce here, our average an
nual foreign trade. i. e., exports and
imports, was S20.67 per inhabitant. In
the protective decade from 1871 to 1881,
our average annual trade rose to S2s. 4S
per inhabitant-an increase of SO per
cent. more than our population.
In the twenty years from 1860 to 1881,
during four years of which our hands
were tied by destructive civil war, the
foreign commerce of the United States
increased 95 per cent, while that of the
United Kingdom increased only 80 per
cent Surely, facts are more valuable
than mere theories.
The increase Of our foreign trade I'M
der protective policy is due to two
features of 1t which the average free
trader ignores. He ignores the fact
that while this policy does restrict i'm
portations of articles which we can and
ought to produce ourselves. it at the
same time opens wide the door to i'm
portations, free of duty, of articles
which we cannot produce; and that the
prosperity engendered by the possession
OF our home markets for our own indus
tries and labor enables US to become
larger purchasers of such free articles,
and of other articles of luxury than be-
fore. The consequent result is an in
crease of foreign trade, but under such
conditions as to retain our home mar
ketsi in large part for our own industries.
In short the protective policy aims to
increase foreign trade by importing
more of what we cannot produce and
less OF what we can aud ought to pro-
duce for ourselves policy which adds
to our own prosperity and increases our
ability to buy.
The tariff reform, or free trade policy.
on the other hand, aims to increase for
eign trade by importing more of what
we can and ought to produce ourselves
a policy which diminishes our prosper
ity and ability to buy just in proportion
as imports displace the products of our
own industry.
To illustrate: The Mills bill, which