The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-12-06
A KEY
Mr.. Hill Says It Will Turn the
Locks Of the Foreign
Markets.
If It Is Not Used, Overproduction
Will Again Cause Us Trouble
E.. at Home.

| .s su'' al x1OI1c. f =. .-.
/ Washington, Dec. 6.--In his talk with
w. e. Curtis yesterday j. J. Hill, presi-t
dent of the Great Northern, said:
"At the time the civil war closed we
had population Of 34,000,000, and have,
been increasing at the rate Of 100000
| every year since. At that rate the gain
in twenty-five years will equal the entire
population in 1865. The census reports
since 1890 show that we double our popu-
lation every thirty years, i,czssss,gtE' !
At the close of the civil war all the
| land in northern Wisconsin, western
| Iowa, western Minnesota and west of the
| Mississippi river tosthe Pacific ocean was
practically vacant. To-day. speaking
generally, there Is no arabic land to be
| had anywhere upon the public domain.
There is not an acre of public land where
a man can raise a crop Of potatoes or grain
without irrigation. If that change has
| taken place within the last thirty-seven
years, what shall we expect in the next
thirty years? Where are the people
| to live who come to us from foreign coun-
tries at the rate Of half million a year.
and what are we going to do with the
natural increase of our own people:
1.-THE northwest is already. getting so
crowded that more than $4,000 farmers
have gone over the line The Canadians
claim l5,UOU DGt mat IS eNceSSlFe. 4uey
were good farmers, Industrious. 1ntelH-
gent and wel-to-do. and had the capital
! to buy outright from 900 to 1000 acres
| of land from the Dominion government,
and have taken the oath of allegiance to
King Edward. We could have kept them
on our own side of the border If we could
! have given them irrigrated lands. .-,
Zone thousand acres with irrigation is
as good as 5000 acres without; that is,
as many people can be maintained upon
a thousand acres under Irrigation as upon
o. 900 acres of fertile soil depending upon
natural rainfall. Therefore, If we can make
one acre Of land do the work OF I'VE, 1t
is worth while trying it.
'See what England is. doing IN Egypt
| and in India and you realize that there
| is great danger to us from That competl-
| tion-so great that our statesmen ought to
| be thinking about 1t.
1--WE are building up trade in flour and
| other breadstuffs in China. We are cult
Evatng among the Chinese an appetite for
our -four, and by and by we hope that they
will like it as we'll as rice, but we have to
| furnish 1t as cheap as their rice, and must
get ready to meet the competition or
| Egypt and India flour in those same mar
| kets II England continues to repeat her
| Indian and Egyptian irrigation enterprises
| she won't need to buy wheat and flour OF
| us much longer, and when England stops
buying our grain, it will rot in the fields
| and the elevators. 1t is the fashion to
abuse the English, but we ought not to
| forget that they are our best customers
and also that they are the only nation
that does not discriminate against U.S."
| What is going on in China? y"
'"rhere is to be an, enormous develop
ment in China. They are getting ready
for it over there. Our exports increased
business was all broken up for about two
years. but it has been resumed and IS
growing faster than before. But there
is great danger that the United. States
may not be able to participate in the
profits, for several reasons. = In the first
place, our American manufacturers
dropped the trade when they found they
| could sell goods to equal advantage in the
home market. They We're very short
sighted. When business was dull in the
United States we gave a very low rate on
| all kinds of freight. We carried wire,
nails and commercial iron Of all descrip-
tons from Buffalo and Cleveland to Hong
kong for 40 cents hundred, and -four 40
cents a. hundred, the same price you pay
/ to have your trunk taken to a railway
| statiOn-and we gave similar rate to
Australia from all Lake Erie ports-200
miles by rail and 5000 miles by sea, while
i the rate to New York was 20 cents a
hundred in the summer and 80 cents in the
winter. The merchants and manufacture
ers who went into it did a good business
until business began to pick up here in
| the United States, when they concluded
that they would rather sell their goods at
home than ship them to China. Hence
/ the effort to find a market for general
merchandise in the east was practically
i abandoned. Our merchants voluntarily
/ withdrew, the Germans went in and got
the trade and will keep it. 70 80
tits the same old story; you have heard
it over and over again. The experience
l has been repeated in Brazil and Africa and
i elsewhere. When our manufacturers have
a lot Of goods that they cannot sell at
home they spend time and money working
up foreign trade, and as soon as the
home market revives they neglect their
foreign. customers and lose them. A. We
might have had the best of the Chinese
| trade If we have kept our, boat in the
! stream, but it's all gone to be worked up
| again, and you can never regain what you
have lost. - >tiE&
| Another disadvantage that our manu-
facturers will have to meet is that it costs
SO much more to- manufacture things in
this country than in Germany and
Europe. Our machinery and agricultural
| implements Will take care of themselves.
They are SO much superior to everything
made in other countries that they create
their own market but it's the thousand
and one, little things that I am talking
about. -r&s@#. -. g
Last year we manufactured thirteen
hundred millions of merchandise in this
country and exported only $440, oOO 900.
Out of our; 81, 5o0,0O0,Oo0 exports. $1,O6O,-
00Q0 came out Of the ground. so that
the manufacturers really cut a small fig
ure beside the farmers, although they are
growing fast. They must grow faster,
however, in order to give people some-
thing to do. The SOC, 900 people that re
added to our population every year must
be employed. and that will cause an over
production like that from which we suf-
; fered a few years ago. Our productive
movement has gained such an impetus
during these years of prosperity that con-
4 ditions will be a great deal worse than
they ever We're before unless we find mar
kets in foreign Countries. F. 4
| But how ecan we find those markets q,
L asked Mr.. Hill. 4ssr} q .egs q &ss%s& &
BY negotiating reciprocity treaties
with every nation that can buy our
goods replied Mr.. Hill. THE republ1-
cans must adopt that policy, even though
1t may be disagreeable to the sacred COW
they worship &
/" with what nations would you suggest
IS,<