The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1896-05-30
A BUSTED BUGABOO..
Senator Stewards yellow Terror
of the East"
Our Little Trade with Japan and China
rs 1t Appears Under the 6 to Mag
nifying Glass of the Cheap
Money Chariatans.

Having failed to geta serious hearing
for their sixteen-to-one scheme on its
merits, the silverites have for several
months been trying to brighten the peo-
pie into voting for free coinage by hold
ing Up he bogy of Chinese and Japan
csc competition. BY representing that
the products of the cheap labor of China
and Japanweret threatening our farmers
and workers with ruin they for n time
succeeded in soaring a few timid per-
sons into the belief that this country
should adopt the monetary standard of
those cheap-labor countries. Mr.. Whar-
ton Barker, of Philadelphia, was so inn
pressed with the danger of allowing
the American people to buy cheap goods
that he drew up a set of resolutions,
which were signed by 16 senator's rs
the basis for their support of free coin
agc. The preamble to the resolutions
declared that:
"whereas, The difference of exchange be-
tween silver standard and gold standard
countries is equivalent to bounty of 100
percent on the products of the silver stand
nrd countries, and
''whereas, The cost Of production In the
old world. and particularly In China and
Japan. Is less than products can be pro-
duced or manufactured In this country by
American labor without reducing our
farmers, miners, mechanics, manufacture
ers and Industrial workers to the level Of
Chinese coolies, therefore be 1t resolved.
etc"
Mr.. Joseph Nimmo, Jr,, q former chief
of the statistical bureau of the treas
ury department, pricks Mr.. Barker's
bubble of theories with the following
plain statement of facts:
'The absurdity of regarding our
trade relations with China and Japan
Us governing condition in the finance
of commerce is indicated by the follow
ing comparison as to the value of our
trade with CHM and Japan and with
certain gelti-standard countries for the
year ended June 80, 1894:
VALUE OF IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.
China and Japan. So, 513, 14g
Crit Britain, France and Gerrn'y. $500 ,Sl5
"In connection with this it is also of
interest to advert to the total value OF
our foreign commerce and to the total
value of our internal commerce. The
total value of the foreign commerce of
the United States during the year
ended June 30, 1894, was 81 ,547, 49,, 194.
1t is impossible to state with any de-
gree OF accuracy the value of the in
tcrnal commerce of the United States,
but from all we know it appears safe to
say that it amounts TO fully SOS, 900, 000,-
600 annually. How absurd, then, to at
tempt to delude the people of this coun-
try with the idea that cur trade rela-
tons with China and Japan constitute a
governing condition of total COM
merce faily 500 times as great.
.'ro assume that American farmers,
miners, manufacturers and industrial
workers can be reduced to the level OF
Chinese coolies by trade of such com
parativcly insignificant proportions
and consisting, in SO far as relates to i'm
ports, almost exclusively of tea, silk
end other commodities not produced In
this ccunsry, and which, therefore, does
not compete with American farmers
uircrs, manufacturers and industrial
workers, is vagary too absurd fol
serious consideration even in the con
licts OF partisan warfare"
This should convince the American
workingncn and farmers that tn.
yellow Terror of the East" as il il
called by Senator Silver-Knight Stew
art, is osay stuffed scarecrow, and YER,
badly stuffed at that.