The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1901-09-06
AN IMPOSSIBLE BOYCOTT.

AN IMPOSSIBLE BOYCOTT.
Saturday Evening Post: The.
threatened anti-American tariff league
in Europe has crumbled at the first
touch Of German exclusiveness. The
German landlords want to keep out
American farm products, but they are
equally determined to keep out the
products Of Austria and Russia. So
the new German tariff strikes out I'M
partially all around and the Anstrians
and Russians forthwith invite the
American enemy to make common
cause with them against their neigh
bOrs.
It is natural that Austria and Russia
should resent Germany's action more
than we do. We find it profitable, or
we should not carry it on. and we
should be sorry to lose it, but still if
it were lost no American would SUI
fer any serious inconvenience after
we had once adjusted ourselves to
the change.
Ours is the only country in the
world that could get along in perfect
comfort without any foreign trade at
all. OF course it is impossible for
any conceivable combination to de-
prive us of all our commerce-the
bulk of it would remain after CONT
mental Europe had done it's worst
but if every dollars worth of it should
ply ourselves with every necessary
and luxury of life. A few thousand
farmers who now raise wheat for ex-
port would devote their land to sugar
beets and pastures for blooded sheep.
Our teafarms in South Carolina would
pass from the experimental to the
commercial stage. Our cotton acre
age would be somewhat reduced and
fax and silk would be produced in
stead. The cultivation of coffee would
be encouraged in Porto Rico, Hawaii
and the Philippines. Factories would
be built for the production of fine
textiles, glassware and metal goods
that we now import from Europe.
The destruction of our forests would
be checked by the stoppage of exports
of lumber. The deserts of Arizona,
| New Mexico and Southern California
would be redeemed to give us the
| semi-troplcal products of the Medit-
erranean, and our island possessions
| could supply us with everything that
we now draw from South America
and Africa. The gold of Alaska and Of
our western states and territories
would mor than supply all our finan-
cial needs. In short, this republic is
a world, a planet in itself, independent
of any and all other countries.
But the other countries would find
some difficulty in getting along with
out us. Deprived of it's transatlantic
trade Germany would have to give up
it's dream of an imperial merchant
marine. 1t would be hard to run the
cotton mills of Europe without Amer
lean cotton or to fill European mouths
without American grain.
The people of Europe lived, of
course, after afashion, before America
was discovered, but there were not
SO many of them as there are now
nor did they have 10 many wants.
They have multiplied to a point at
which their population could hardly
be sustained without American com
merce. II they were deprived Of it
they would have to come down either
to a lower standard of living OF a
smaller population. The result would
| probably be a wholesale emigration to
the United States. In other words,
we should get as much trade with
Europeans al ever, but it would be
come domestic instead Of foreign
trade.