St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-08-20
OUR BEST CUSTOMER.

Sentiment is all right in its place,
but business is always business. One
need not love the person on whom
his bread and butter depends, but he
is prudent not to quarrel with him,
unless driven to it by honor. Jones
but if Jones buys half your produce
it is just as well, as a matter of bust
ness, to keep off his neck; and even
to refrain from treading on his coat
tail when he trails it around in a
truculent manner, however provok-
ing and tempting it may be. Then,
too, it may be questionable whether
it is good business policy or good
horse sense to be constantly abusing
Jones in public and holding him up
to obloquy as a graSping, rapacious,
greedy, over-reaching and altogether
untrustworthy individual, if he is
the man who buys the most of what
you have to sell. Above all, it is not
prudent to be telling him that you
don't want any of his goods, and
wish you didn't have to buy any,
and that you are trying to get in a
way so that you won't have to buy
anything Of him. Jones might take
offense and make arrangements to
get his things of Smith, and then
where would you be? There may
be no friendship in business, but a
decent regard for ones own welfare
would suggest that unnecessary war
fare be suppressed.
All Of this is the merest of plati-
tudeS when applied to Jones and
Smith. They recognize it's sense and
adjust their mutual behavior to it,
But when one gets beyond the indi-
vidual and deals with the aggregate
man, the nation, we turn sense into
nonsense, and we thump and pound
and revile and abuse the bunch Of
men who are our best customers, OBJ
livious of the fact that human nature
is the same whether punched or
segregated. England is the man of
straw Of our politics, to be set up
and knocked over by every ism that
rises to the surface. Why don't we
hear about French greed, or Dutch
rapacity, or Austrian pauper labor?
Why always British gold?" Is it
because quarrels between kinsmen
are always the bitterest? Most prob
ably it is just a survival of ancient
antagonisms. But the why or the
wherefore of this incessant use of the
British as a hobgoblin is one mat
ter, and the fact that the United
Kingdom is our best customer is
another, and, from a business point
of view, a more important one. There
is a general impression, derived from
the talk about being flooded with
cheap English goods, that we buy
a great deal more of that country
than it does of us. That England
is our best customer, buying of us
IWiSe WIdl II SellS US, Is d. IdcC
worth some attention as mere mat
ter of business and the comfy that
brings profit.
In the fiscal year 1895 this coun-
try bought, of all Europe, goods of
the value of 1888, 1854 and of this
the United Kingdom sent us $780,
h inc
We sold Europe $627, 975, 1873 worth of
our produce; of which the United
Kingdom took 1887, 170,615, or consid-
erably more than half. While France
sent us 61,560,0 63 worth of her wares,
She took from us but Sac, 034, ISL worth
of ours; and Germany sent us $751;
OIL, 443 in goods, and took 1872, 053, 953
from US. Going from generalities to
details, England took five-ninths Of
our exports of corn; three-fourths Of
our wheat; IS per cent of our flour;
81 per cent Of our copper; SO per cent
of our cotton bales; 80 per cent of
our hops; 60 per cent of our sole
leather; so per cent of all other
leather; 55 per cent of our turpentine;
45 per cent of our oilcake; 65 per cent
Of our canned beef; Sc per cent of
our fresh beef; As per cent of our
salt beef; IS per cent of our bacon;
Sc per cent Of our hams; all of our
fresh and salt pork; 40 per cent of
our lard and so per cent of our
cheese. These facts of trade would
seem to indicate the wisdom of MAIN
tanning aanicable relations with our
best customer until some overt act
affords cause for open hostility.