The herald., 1898-06-17
American Export Trade

In the interest created by the immense
foreign demand for our food products. rath-
er less attention than they deserve has been
paid, says Bradstreets, to our steadily
growing exports of manufactured goods
The high price and immense shipments of
cereals, particularly wheat, flour and corn,
with larger takings of other food products
has reduced the relative proportion or per-
centage of exports of manufactured goods
But this reduction proves more apparent
than real, because the total shipments for
the present fiscal year exceed those of last
year by more than $40, 900 600, and last year.
as is well known, broke all records in the
matter of exports of manufactured articles
1t is not generally known, however. that for
the first time in the history of the country
the values of exports exceed those of i'm
ports The detailed record, furnished by
the Hon. o. P. Austin. the new chief of the
bureau of statistics of the treasury depart
ment, shows that for ten months of the pres
emit year our exports of manufactures eX-
ceeded imports by over 100000 900, and 1t is
not improbable that the full years excess
will reach $50 600, 000 How well this COM
pares with preceding years is shown by
the fact that in 1897 our imports of manu-
features exceeded our exports by s27. 900 .O00
IN 1896 by $104 900 .0O0 and in 1895 by $121 OO0
000 Partial explanation of this years ex-
cess of manufactures exported. of course.
will be found in the heavily reduced i'm
ports, which have been a feature of our
trade for some years past but it is none the
less true that the various forces working
toward developing our export trade. the
commercial museums. the National Manu-
facturers associa ton, the work done by our
consular representatives. and above all the
absolute necessity forced upon our manu-
facturers of finding a sufficient foreign out
let for their surplus goods, have all worked
to one end, and that the DEVELOPMENT of
Americas export trade.
When comparisons are made with 1888,
a decade ago, it is found. says the same au-
thority that our exports of manufactures
have more than doubled. Those of iron and
steel have quadrupled, those of illumin-
ating and lubricating oils have doubled,
while our exports of cottons are so per cent
larger, of wire nails eleven times greater
and of iron and steel plates ten times what
they were ten years ago Exports of leather
and copper, OF paraffine and paraffine wax
ha$SI.Su heavily increased In the same pc
ROD, and but few lines of our export trade
show falling off. Foreign observers of our
progress. and especially our rivals in trade,
have confidently predicted that this devel-
opment in export trade would not continue
long, basng their predictions chiefly upon
higher prices at home, and especially for
raw materials of manufacture, checking the
movement abroad. A large part of the bust
ness we are doing in locomotives with Rus
STA is claimed to have been due to the en-
gineers' strike in Great Britain, preventing
the placing of orders in that country and
the claim is made that in the future we
need not look for much business in this
particular direction. Against this. however,
may be cited the well known fact that Amer
lean manufactures, and particularly those
of mechanical nature, such as engines
and machine tools, where they once obtain
a footing, are not easy to displace: their
intrinsic worth their finish and their adapt
ability all tending to popularize them. 1t is
safe to say that the development of our
export trade in manufactures in the next
few years will share more largely than ever
before in public attention with the foreign
demand for our raw products.