Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1900-10-04
FARMERS GAIN WIDER TRADE.
The More Markets Opened, the Bet
ter Prices Are Certain
to he.


fits the farmer; how good prices and
steady prices are to be obtained for
his crops if our foreign trade. is ex-
tended; how, in short, the policy which
our country has just begun to enter
upon is going to affect him in the fu-
ture.
Expansion is the natural, economic,
inevitable outburst of growing ma
ton, which cannot sell advantageous
ly enough all of its products at home.
Not only do the other nations of the
earth wish to buy our food products.
but they are feeling a greater and
greater need for our machinery and all
the other products of our mills, in
order that they, too, may enter for
the race of progress. Their demands
have possibly been anticipated by our
captains of production, industry,
transportation and finance; perhaps
we have been ready for them Just a
little before they were ready for us.
AT all events, we have the goods; and
they have the use for them and the
money to pay.
The foreign market is diversified an6,
steady. Uncounted millions, almost,
stand ready to draw upon us for sup
plies; they simply need to be reached.
American goods simply have to be
shown. When their superiority is
seen millions of dollars worth of bust
ness can be done. This cannot mean
anything except that those who raise
and sell our food products, those who
manufacture and sell our machinery,
cotton goods, and any one of the thou
sand. and one other goods. are going, if
there is anything in the law of demand
and supply, to have wider and stead
Ter demand, to meet a higher and stead
Ter scale of selling prices. There is
this other thing in it all; it is, in a
word, the tremendously beneficial eff
feet of the growth of foreign demand
upon local demand. The figures show
that the increase of our export trade
in the last two years has been simply
astonishing; still more SO has the
growth of our imports of raw mate
rial or of material used by manufac-
turers. 1t is inconceivable that our
monthly excess of $50.O00,O00 of ex-
ports over imports should mean any
thing, to the biggest city or the small
est, to Maine or Texas, to Washington
or Georgia, but an increased demand
locally, everywhere, and growing stead
Ter everywhere, for the products of
the farm. Does it mean nothing to the
| neighboring farmer that those, of our
cities that the census Office has already
portedupon have increased their pop
ulation from 25 to so per cent? Sure
ly it means that, within the range
where this additional and growing
population must buy advantageously,
the prices of farm products that they
must have will rise.
1t may be said in a general way that
it is impossible for one group in the
body polite to enjoy prosperous con-
ditions unless every other one does.
Things industrial and commercial ad-
| just themselves Hairly for all con-
cerned; they do it ultimately and SOON
because they do it automatically. The
rich man cannot prosper unless those
| who earn their daily wages do; nor
can the working people prosper I'M
less some in the community assumes
the heavy responsibilities, and, just as
inevitably, gains the great returns OF
leadership. Always, however, the
tendency in every quarter is onward
and upward; onward and upward TO,
price returns for products or for la
Dor, always onward and upward in the
scale of living; which means that the
Last and most important of all the
stages of human improvement, the SO
cial and the intellectual, must climb
and. ever climb higher, also.