The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-01-30
BLIND INFANCY.

the other nations of the world; in its
ocean shipping, cotton and steel exporta-
lions the United States is in the puppy
dog age Our statesmen and masters of
commerce, our captains of industry, are
just catching a glimmering OF the
light that should fall upon them like the
great light that fell upon Saul Of Tarsus;
and our sovereigns of labor are still at
the foothills Of wisdom. where wages are
more to them than expectations of goods
and importations of gold. For wages and
exports are intimately associated. so that
If wages be high at home, and exports be
necessary to support manufacture, the
manufacturer must sell for better price
at home than abroad, or shut up his mill
for portion of the year. Our working
men are grasping blindly at their share
of prosperity, not realizing that the man
ufacturers of Europe could affo-d to
maintain proletariat of malcontents IN
this country in order to keep wages at
high figure and workingmen at a n gn
tension Of discomfort.
But our worst puppy-dogism comes In
the line of ocean shipping in the foreign
trade. England's foreign carrying trade
| employs vessels to that extent that the
| entrances and clearances at all British
ports (not coloniaD for one year usually
run as high as 10, 900 registered tons,
while those Of all the ports of the United
States run as high as from 30.O0o,000 to
so, OOo, 900 registered tons (vessel TONNAGE.
Yet we are Dragging like vast Falstaffs,
Just now, about our foreign trade.
In 1898 all the other shipyards of the
world built a vessel tonnage amounting
to 575, 484 registered net tons, while those
of Great Britain built tonnage of 1,61o,-
055 tens.
In 1899 all the other shipyards of the
world produced a net registry of 6SS,625
tons and those of Great Britain l,fo5'9l4
TONS or almost three times as much as
all the others combined. Yet Germany
and France and the United States are
boasting of their new merchant marine.
Some of our brags are true but not that
of the campaign orators, that the United
States is the richest and most powerful
nation on the face of the earth. That is
pure exaggeration. Great Britain mas
four times the landed area under ner
control that the United States nave, ana
four times the number of people. With
from 5000, OO0,O 900 to $4G0,O0O,O0O in goo In
her vaults at home, England does bust
ness that warps into littleness all Yankee
ideas of credit and expansion of business,
reaching all the confines of the earth with
that Bank of England bank note, which
&c navable in gold the world over as GER
tainlv as the English battleship is ac-
oorded honor and credit wherever she
goes to the full measure of al the history
of the English navy.
Tn 1899 the United States did in truth
baye more miles of railroad than all the
rest of the world combined. They p-oouc-
ed more coal, more copper. more silver,
more pig iron, more steel, more cotton,
more wheat. more corn, more flour, and
handled a larger internal commerce, than
any other nation on earth. But that Is q
species of braggadocio that belittles our
doings with other nations. 1t is patent
that we have the necessary wealth, ener-
gv and trade resources to enable US to
cor,pete with even the British nation On
the sea. if we would but learn the lesson
II is easy to understand from the ship
yard returns alone why it was that IN
the eleven months of 1899 the United
States sold to the Argentine republic
goods to the value of S10,S0o,0oo, while
England sold to the same country goods
to the value of $50, ISL 595. Every English
vessel that entered her foreign trade put
from five to twenty factors at work in
behalf of British goods.
The United States expends ordinarily
from $4O,00O,OOO 20 $60,00o.0o0 a year in
new railroad trackage. We do that
without wrinkle or rifle upon our
faces because of the expenditure. 1t is
all spent at home. 1t is amongst our
selves. on the land and goes to develop
new mining or forest regions ard builds
many new towns and prospers many old
ones. But it is in way all prepara-
ton for trade abroad, unless we pro-
pose to Isolate ourselves as China has
for thousands of years. We have gone
abroad abundantly with our farm prod
| ucts and fed Europe at the lowest pos
| sibIe figure We do actually sell flour
! in Glasgow at Minneapolis prices, and
steel bridges in Egypt and India at Chi
cago Or Montana prices. We have been
| feeding our inevitable competitors in the
| markets of the world, and now we are
| trying to sell to them the goods which
they are experts at making. True, we
get from abroad $50, 00O,O 900 for mineral OIL.
but we pay out $40,00O000 for raw silk,
and the other fellows carry the goods
| and work up the trade for other prod
ucts for their home merchants If min
eral oil, capitalized at $16O,000,000 or there
abouts STANDARD Oil trusD, can bring
into the country every year fifty to sixty
millions in gold, or enough to balance our
sugar or coffee bill, what ought not
| steel ard iron to do, capitalized as they
are, in various ways, at almost billion
dollars? And what ought not cotton to
| do in its manufactured state, if in its
raw condition it brings in three hundred
millions per annum?
Ard if we can afford to put forty to
sixty millions into railroads at home,