The representative., 1899-11-16
The Representative
632 Boston Block. i minneapolis, ninn

! people, and consequent immense loss
| of home markets for her manufactured
| goods. CAS- typical illustration Of this
| quote the following, told by that pow
erful writer of English Populism. G.. F.
| Million, 80 harrington Road, London
Fngland)
! Il stuck to tn old man (his father)
as long as l could, and 'oufd do it., TIL
old un ad seat by my fireside and a
bit O sonnet to eat while l could git to
n. But when he went into the 'ouse
| (poor farm) cause l couldn't afford to
| keep n at 'ome and feed the young MS,
| they didn't oughter a come down on me
| for shin week, and I told em so.'
| (Sure as fate, as the answers to the
! questions we are printing prove, Ameri-
can wheat and cotton planters are not
SO far from the same hapless lot of that
English peasant as they imagine. Moth
ing but Populism can. save them from
it. II. B. F.)
Great Britain, in all her vast, world
wide possessions, found in 1896 mar
ket for but $453, $780, ,OOO On the other
hand, we, for China and Japan alone
without the terrible cost of England's
expansion policy, found an annual mar
ket for $35,000,00O worth of goods. In
1881 the total imports into China from
Great Britain and the United States
wora ahOut exc mn OOO. =, 1o07 .L.4
$53,OOO,O00. In the first year the pro-
portions were: Britain, $4,000, 900;
United States, $8,OOO,O ,OOO In the latter
year, $35,000,0OO and $4,000, 900. 1t is
thus seen that the figures are, even on a
commercial basis, against the change
of policy proposed by the Mckinley ad-
mlnistratiOn. Figures also show an
other valuable point. The imports into
China from the United States and
Britain make up fully one-third of her
total imports OF this our exports to
China have already been, without the
cost of an imperialistic policy, nearly
Britain. Once more, China in 1896
made market for all foreign goods
from all countries of only $15S, 900, 900.
In 1897 China bought, all told, from the
outside world $149,S9O,353, of which we
had about one-sixth. (The imports of
South America are twice as large and
of such imports we furnish only about
one -tenth)
q ino hoy n
head to expend per year for foreign
goods. But they say that this will in
crease when China, under European
direction, is developed. But England
has been developing and exploiting
India for a couple of centuries now,
and the Indian people have somewhere
between 60 and 70 cents head a year
to expend for foreign goods, and not all
how strikingly small is the prospective
trade to be obtained out of those 400
100000 Chinese laborers; that in com
peting, as they would, with our own la
standard of living lower and still lower
Indeed, any trade obtained with the
Orient is so small as compared to our
domestic trade as to be hardly worth
consideration. AS it amounts to not
more than 21a per cent of our. domestic
trade, we should just take 40 times the
pains to conserve our domestic trade as
to capture their Chinese trade And in |
all this argument we have omitted the
effective competition of Japan. whose |
proximity to China gives Japan every !
advantage.
But the prime question is not whether
the rest of the world will clothe the !
backs of the Chinese, but whether the
awakened Chinese may not clothe the
backs of others. China, developed, will I
be an agricultural, mining and manu-
featuring cOuntry-not an importing,
Cinnamon will soon learn to supply
their own markets. Beyond doubt China
possesses unsurpassed natural resources
of every kind and description. She will
become capable of making practically
all that her people consume cheaper
han others can supply them. We need
lot count on extending our exports to
China, and to permit importations of
Ter goods to us would be but to reduce
,ur laborers to- the Chinese level. And
We may add that, not buying more
argely from China, China cannot buy
more largely from us.
China and the United States lie in like
'arallels of latitude, of equal varied and
unsurpassed natural resources, of SINH
ar climes. We produce nothing China
loes not or cannot produce-not even
'etroleum. On her part China can pro-
luce little we do not and may want.
ave silk and tea
The only trade that can enrich ma
ions is the buying Of products that can
lot be produced at home at all, or can |
'e more economically produced else
vhere Qncluding cost of transporta-
ion), and the selling of products to
ther nations that they cannot pro-