The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1894-10-04


conclude the closest trade rela.
|. tions. Soon after the Mckinley bill
became law, reciprocity agreements
were concluded that gave encourage
ment and new impulse to our exports.
For the productions Of our fields and
factories there was new demand. and
expansion of our foreign commerce
under the influence Of reciprocity was
Ono Of the Most Marked Features
of time OF otherwise languishing
international trade. Under the McKin-
ley act commercial. treaties were con-
Guided with Guatemala, Honduras, Sal
vador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Santo
Domingo, Brazil, the Spanish colonies
of Cuba aud Porto Rico, the British
colonies of Jamaica, Trinidad, Barba-
does, Guiana and the Leeward and
Windward islands in America, and
Austro- Hungary and Germany III Eu-
rope. BY these treaties the countries
named secured the free admission into
the United States for their sugar, tea.
coffee, hides, rubber, and certain other
products; they in turn admitting free
from the United States, wheat flour,
corn and corn meal, rye and rye flour,
buckwheat and barley, butter and
cheese, lard, hay, oats, cottonseed oil,
picklod and sailed pork and bacon, lum-
Der and manufactures of wood, agdcul-
tural implements, mining machinery,
and long list of other manufactured
products. They admitted at only half
their regular duties another list of COM
modities, such as cutlery and other
hardware, earthenware, furniture, pre-
served and canned goods, and various
minor articles. They admitted at three
fourths of their regular duties still an
other list, somewhat shorter and less
important than the foregoing.
a Single and Striking Illustration
may stand for the whole: The exro.t
of American -four to Cuba, prior to this
arrangement, was ALMOST prohibited by
aduty of over So barrel, or more than
the entire cost at the points OF ship
ment. Reciprocity decreased this duty
to about one-half, with corresponding
effect upon our exports. From 1876 to
1891 our imports from Cuba were great.
or than our exports to Cuba by $780,
192,512 For those IL years the average
exports to Cuba were $l1,793, 400, but
commencing in 1891, the year of our
reciprocity agreement, there was an
enormous increase in all lines of trade.
In that year our exports were slightly
over ST., 600, 900; in 1892 they rose to
nearly $4,000, 900, and in 1895 they
amounted to $24, 157, sos, or more than
double what they had been in any year
under the old system. The effect of
the new policy upon the whole trade is
shown by an export of ia, 447 barrels
in 1891, rising to 366, 175 in 1902, and to
GIG, 4O6 in 1898. This great body Of
trade
Has Been Destroyed at Blow.
The nations with which we concluded
reciprocity treaties are justly angered at
our vacillating policy. AS soon as the
new tariff law went into effect Spain
served notice that the reciprocity agree
ment could no longer be enforced; and
already the old prohibitory duties upon
imports from the United States to Cuba
has been restored. By stroke of the
pen we have signed away that market
for our products to the advantage of no
one outside Of the sugar trust. Of that
loss the farmers and the milling inter-
ests of Minnesota will have to bear
more than their share.
Second to none of the advantages of
reciprocity was the opening of the mar
kets in Austria and Germany for our
provisions and breadstuffs in exchange
for free entry for their beet root sugar.
, 1t is undeniable that, if this policy had
been permitted to develop naturally and
complete it's work, it would in time
have
Doubled Our Foreign Trade
and made markets all over the world
for those surplus products whose super.
abundance affects prices and profits so
disastrously. But all this fair scheme
of trade has been overthrown
recklessly by the new tariff law,
and the countries that have made
concessions to us, exasperated
now by this brusque and causeless re-
yersal of our former policy, will here
after be as unyielding as they were
heretofore inclined to be generous. Of
sll the ruinous effects of tariff agitation
and tariff legislation within the last two
years, it is doubtful if any can take pre-
E cedence in the sum total of its evil con-
sequences of the abandonment Of reel.
procity.s 80