St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-01-25
THE SAME OLD SONG.

The National Association of Man
ufacturers have met and told the
country what. they wanted Here
tofore they have been accustomed
to sending their representatives
down to congress and advising it
of their wants, and getting them
satisfied. AS constituted at present,
the representative of the manufact-
ureTs are somewhat persona non
grata there, and so they have to con-
tent themselves with meeting and
having an annual dinner and form
ulating their wants in series of res
olutions.
They are very clear that they
want the home market. They are
also equally clear that they want a
foreign market. They are also quite
well convinced that they want cheap
transportation by subsidized lines
to those foreign markets. But they
don't want any of the products of
those foreign markets. That is,
they do not explicitly declare that
the only result of their policy if it
were put into operation. The only
way Of keeping the home market is
by shutting out access to it, either
absolutely or by handicapping those
who would enter it.
When these manufacturers in their
own business stop buying they
know they will stop selling. They
have got sense enough to realize
that. That fact lies under their i'm
are able to see it. That what is
true of them is true of all the other
manufacturers and is true of the
United States as an aggregate, is
what they are evidently not able
to see. The nation that does not
buy cannot sell. AS Secretary Nor
ton tersely put it: You cannot shut
exports out without shutting i'm
ports in
The preservation of the home mar
ket to these manufacturers means
the decrease of our foreign market.
Seventy-one per cent of the stuff
we ship abroad is agricultural prod
uce, for which, in order to preserve
the home market, we take as little
as possible of foreign produce in eX-
change. We decrease the purchas-
Ing power in foreign markets of our
produce. This reacts in a diminish
ing home price for them, thereby
decreasing the purchasing capacity
of the persons upon whom, in the
main, these manufacturers depend
for their home market. Thus the
trade boomerang thrown at our
neighbors across the ocean flies
back and strikes the sender.
Equally inconsistent is their de-
mand that the United States sub
sidize steamship lines to carry our
products to foreign countries. That
was tried quite extensively under
former administrations in connec-
ton with reciprocity measures, for
a return to which the manufacturers
also resolve, but the record of the
trade with those countries whose
ports were touched by the sub
sidiZed lines, with the possible eX-
ception Of Cuba, failed to show any
such corresponding increase of
trade as would warrant a repetition
Of the experiment. But, possibly, it
is too much to expect that genera
ton Of manufacturers educated in
the infancy of their vocations to
believe that they were unable to
support themselves, and that I'M
less they had the sheltering arm of
the general government they must
stumble and fall-it is too much, we
say, TO expect that they can very
soon recover their self-reliance and
learn that they are perfectly able
to walk alone. It is a lesson they
are destined to have taught them,
and the sooner they set themselves
about learning it, the better it will
be for them.