Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-09-04
SOUT8 AFRICAN RELATIONS.
Our Trade Growing With Great,
Rapidly,
BEING MORE THAN FIVE TIMES
AS GREAT NOW AS TEN YEARS
AGO-SOME INTERESTING DATA
CONCERNING BUSINESS WITH
FAR OFF LANDS.
Special to the Register.

Special to the Register.
WASHINGTON, D. c., September 8.
The increased public interest in al
fairs in Africa, and especially South Al
RIGA, resulting from recent develop
ments lends interest to some statements
just prepared by the treasury bureau OF
statistics relative to the commerce OF
the United States with that continent
and the growing demand in all OF its
divisions for our manufactures and pro-
ducts. Exports from the United States
TO Africa were in the fiscal year 1899
more than five times as great as they
were in 1889. The total exports from
the United States to all of Africa in
the fiscal year 1889 were but 81, 1885, sos,
and in 1899 they were $1S,594, 424. From
Cape to Cairo and from Liberia to Ably
sinnia American manufactures and
American food stuffs are making their
way. Railroad bridges in the Nile val
ley, mining machinery in the gold and
diamond districts, clothing and food
stuffs in the Soudan all find an increas-
ing demand. Exports from the United
States to Africa haze grown more rap
idly since 1898 than those Of any other
of the grand divisions of the world,
while Asia and Oceanica comes next,
Ar11o orion nGYf and
South America last in the list, showing
the relative growth in our exports. To
Africa the increase from 1893 to 1899
is 21S per cent; to Asia and Oceanlca,
1856 per cent; to Europe, AZ per cent; to
North America, 80 per cent, and to
South America, 10 per cent, while the
increase in the grand total during that
period has been in round terms As per
cent. Manufactured articles form the
bulk of our expectations to Africa, and
even in those articles ordinarily group
ed under the title of breadstuffs and
provisions, they are classes which have
been so far advanced to a condition for
immediate use that practically all of
the labor required in their preparation
as we'll as production is included in the
prices received for them when they are
put into the market. Flour, meats,
lard, tobacco, mineral oils, clothing,
machinery, furniture, materials for
railways, materials for mining indus
tries and agricultural implements form
the large proportion of our exports to
Africa, and in all of these the quantity
and value of our exports are constant
ly increasing.
Not only are our exports to Africa
rapidly growing, but they are evident
ly taking the place to a greater or less
extent of those articles formerly sup
piled by other countries. The British
South African Export Gazette in a re-
cent number calls attention to the fact
that imports into British and Portu-
guese Africa from the United States are
rapidly growing, and that the increase
NUN 1CJA-C " 1OOi-O w DIS GOl pei CtnL
in articles competing with British goods
the increase was 140 per cent, and in
non-competing articles 565 per cent.
Commenting upon this subject it says:
''The great significance of the COM
petitive items of the table is that gen.
eral entry has been made into hith-
erto English market, and the progress
which has been made, shown by the
aggregate perennial increase of 1892
per cent in the five years, is of nature
to challenge most serious attention. Of
exports of competing articles in rela-
lively large proportion, those to the ex-
tent of five figures and above specially
noticeable are: Machinery, classed
unenumerated, agricultural pumps and
appliances, and sowing and typewriting
machines. Among metal goods are
structural iron and STEEL unenumerat-
ed ironware, railway material, pipes
and fittings, wire and tinware; in hard
ware are locks and unenumerated tools,
but the aggregate of the items under
this heading approaches sly figures.
Taken in the aggregate the lift of ar
ticleS and the figures appended are with
out doubt full of import for all classes
of British manufacturers, showing as
they do that American competition has
to be met in all departments of trade.
This competition is also not to be ig-
nored because the shipments in many
cases are both small in quantity and
value, as this is popularity incidental
to the opening of all new markets. The
energy which our Atlantic cous-
ms put into all of their new departures
is earnest of sufficiently active ex-
ploitation in the near future This can
only be met and the value of our tabu-
lations realized in proportion as re-
newed care and energy on the part of
English firm in cultivating the South
African market are stimulated"
The following table shows the ex-
ports from the United States to Africa
in each wear from 1890 IN 1900.