The Washington times. (Washington [D.C.]) 1901-1902, 1901-08-16
Trade With south America.

There has been no end of comment
upon the smallness of our sales of mer-
chandise to South America, and the
failure of this trade TO develop more
rapidly has been discussed in rather
mournful vein. Nothing could be more
natural than for Americans to desire
the largest commercial intercourse
with their Southern neighbors of the
Western Hemisphere. and there can be
no doubt that upon fair trade basis
our sales in South America will rapidly
| increase in the future. But there is
| nothing discouraging in the circum-
stance that our South American export
trade has progressed with a rather
halting gait.
Trade naturally moves along the lines
of the greatest profits, or at all events
along those lines that seem to promise
the best returns. If our export trade as
a whole had languished. there would be
| good cause for complaint. But instead
of doing so. it has grown to astounding
| proportions, and presumably it has ex-
! banded most where the exporters saw,
or thought they saw, the best oppor-
! tunities. 1t is hardly to be supposed
that the trade of any country will in
crease with equal pace everywhere. If
we sold the rest of the world as much
| in proportion as we do to the United
Kingdom. the total volume of our ex-
| ports would be many times greater
than it now is. But that is not to be
expected. Heretofore we have sold
about all the goods that we have had
to dispose of. and there is no particular
cause for lamentation over the circum-
stance that but a small proportion of
them have gone in a given direction.
There are doubtless good reasons for
the scant exports to South America.
One reason may be this: Until COM
paratively recent date we have had
very little for sale that South America
needed to buy. That great continent is
mainly agricultural. and until within
the last decade our own exports We're
chiefly agricultural Under such cir
cumstances, a very large growth of our
exports to that quarter was not fairly
to be looked for. South American i'm
ports were mainly of manufactured
goods, and these she could obtain to
Europe
Much stress has been laid upon the
lack of transportation facilities be-
tween North and South America, and
possibly such lack has not been alto
gether without effect. But in dealing
with such a question we should be
careful to keep each factor in its proper
place 1t would have been perfectly
absurd to build up a great ocean ma
rine TO connect the ports of the two
American continents before there was
any trade to justify it. Shipping is al
together secondary to the actual trade 4
itself. Vessels are mere appliances for |
the carrying on Of the trade Any ma
ton win build ships just as rapidly as |
it is profitable to do so, and it ought |
not to build them any faster unless it |
is for naval purposes. which is a wholly |
different proposition. Not long ago Mr.. |
Hanna suggested in his speech at Buff |
falo that lack of steamship connections |
was the cause OF our small exports to |
South America. This, of course. was
a covert plea for a subsidy. 1t seems,
though, that the absence of connecting
steamship lines does not prevent us
from buying everything that we need |
to get in South America, and we may
be sure that i. would not have pre-
vented the people living there from
buying whatever they needed from us
if we could have furnished them with
as good or better articles at the same
or lower prices.
We have now reached a period in our
industrial life at which we have large
surplus of manufactured goods for |
sale. These goods are very largely of
kinds which South America needs in
the development of the continents viz
gin resources. Iron and steel goods. |
railway supplies. structural
material. and the like, are lines in
which our manufacturers particularly
excel, and they are the things that
South America most pressingly re-
quires. There Is no reason why this
trade should not be almost entirely
ours, and there are many other
branches in which we can fairly hold
OAR own with all competitors. To ex-
tend our trade with South America il is
not shipping subsidies that are re-
quired. but ii is fair trade, and an ear