The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-12-07
One Hundred Millions Per Month
For a Year.
ALL RECORDS BROKEN
OUR FOREIGN TRADE REACHES
PHENOMENAL PROPORTIONS.
Secretary Gage, In His Report, Gives
the Figures For the Fiscal Year
189S-Favors Subsidies and Boun-
ties For the Merchant Marine
For Currency Reform.

Washington, Dec. 6.-The annual re-
contains the following:
The foreign commerce of the fiscal
year 1898 in many respects has been
phenomenal. The expectations of the
products of both field and factory ex-
ceeded in value those of any preceding
year, and the grand total of exports
was the largest ever recorded. For the
first time in the history of our foreign
commerce, the years expectations av-
eraged more than 500, 900. 900 per month,
the total being 81, 231 4S2, 800, against ST.,
050, 1885 in 1897 and $1,000, PISA in
1892, no other years having reached the
billion-dollar line.
OF our domestic exports, the value of
agricultural products was 1858, 6S3, $40,
surprising by S54, S55,3SS the highest rec
ord ever before made, that of 1892. Our
manufacturers also made their highest
record of exports, those for the year
being 1920, 697 1854, against $277, 2S5, 391 in
the preceding year. For the first time
also in the history CT our foreign COM
| merce, the exports of domestic manu-
| features were greater than the imports
| of foreign manufactures, while the to-
tai exports of the year were twice as
great as the total imports-a condition
| heretofore unknown, the trade balance
! in our favor being more than twice as
great as that of any former year.
Nearly all branches of the great man
ufacturing industries shared in this in
crease of the export trade, particularly
manufactures of iron and steel, leather,
boots and shoes, and mineral oils, the
principal exception being cotton goods,
| the demand for which was somewhat
reduced by the fact that certain coun-
| tries formerly buying our manufac-
| tured goods are now buying our raw
cotton for use in their own factories.
| Nearly all classes of the great agricul-
tural products made their highest rec
ord of exports in the past year. The
value of the wheat and flour exported
was greater than in any preceding
year, except 1892; the quality of cotton,
corn and oats surpassed in each case
| that of any preceding year, and the eX-
ports of meat and dairy products,
grouped under the general head of pro-
visions, exceeded in value those of any
! former year.
The prices realized on nearly all i'm
portant articles of export We're higher
than in the preceding year, the notable
exceptions being cotton and mineral
oils, in each of which the production
| in the United States, the worlds chief
producer of these articles. has been in
the past few years phenomenally large,
thus affecting the prices abroad as well
as at home.
The years record of the imports and
exports of the precious metals was also
an unusual one. The importations OF
gold were greater than in any preced-
ing year in the history of the country
and the exports smaller than in any
year in the present decade, making the
net importations the largest ever
known The total imports of gold were
s120, 391 674, and the exports, SIS, 4O6, S91
the net imports being s104, 1885,, 2S3, the
largest, in any preceding year being
$97 466, 127 in 1881, while on only twelve
previous occasions since 1850 have tbs
years imports of gold equaled the ex-
ports. The importation of silver, most
of which comes into the country in lea6
ore and base bullion. amounted to $50,
I 92T,7S1 in value, against $780, 1913, 227 in
1897 and S2S,777, 1856 in 1885, while the ex-