Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1905-12-26
GROWING COMMERCE WITH POSSESSIONS
Will Aggregate 20 Million Dollars This
Year with the Philippines.

IEdl With tAG rlIlllpnlNES'
Commerce between the United
States and the Philippine Islands
is likely to aggregate about 20
million dollars in the year which
ends with the present month.
While only ten months figures of
the present calendar year are
available, they so much exceed
those of an earlier year as to justi-
fy the belief that the total will
reach about 20 millions, against
about Is millions in 1904, 10
millions in 1900, 4 millions in
1898, and little over 4 millions
in 1897, the year prior to Ameri-
can occupation. Thus it seems
likely that our trade with the Is
lands in the year about to end
will be nearly four times as great
as in the last year of Spanish con-
troll, and approximately four times
as great as the average during the
several years prior to American
occupation. Prior to the year
1899 exports from the United
States to the Philippine Islands
had never exceeded quarter of
million dollars. In the present
year they will aggregate nearly 6
million dollars, or certainly 20
times as much as in any year
prior to American occupation.
Imports from the islands, which
ranged between four and five
million dollars yer annum prior
to 1899, were in 1902, 10 million
dollars; in 1903, 124 millions, and
in 1905 will be about &c millions,
or about three times as much as
the average prior to American oc-
cupation.
This increase in trade with the
islands is distributed through a
large number of articles, especially
in the case of exports, which have
grown from 500, 459 in 1897, the
year before American occupation,
to about 6 millions in 1905. A
statement just issued by the De-
partment of Commerce and Labor
Through it's Bureau of Statistics.
shows the total trade with the is
lands in each calendar year from
1895 to 1904 and ten months of
the calendar year 1905. 1t also
shows the principal articles ex-
ported to and imported from the
islands in the ten months ending
| with October, 1905, and compare
them with the figures of the cor
responding months of 1904. This
statement of exports to the is-
lands includes hundreds of ar
ticles, agricultural implements,
books and maps and engravi gs,
| breadstuffs, cars and carriages,
manufactures of cotton, fruits aid
nuts, hay instruments and ap-
paratus for scientific purposes , f
iron and steel, manufacturers of
| leather. mineral oil, meats,
canned vegetables, canned milk,
wines and spirits, manufactures
of wood and many other articles.
The imports from the Philip
pines, while they have grown from
81, 1852, ,181 in 1897, the year prior
to American occupation, to $12,-
652,262 in the ten months of the
present year, and even seem likely
to approximate IA millions in the
full year, or three times as much
as in 1897, are confined to COM
paratively few articles, and up to
this time are chiefly hemp and
sugar. The value of hemp i'm
ported from the islands in the
ten months ending with October
was $10,376, ,528, or an average of
more than one million dollars per
month, and that of sugar $2,216,-
249. The other articles imported
from the Philippines are up to
this time extremely few and of
little value,z the next largest after
sugar being straw hats and bon
nets, $14, 4,796; vegetables oils, $e,-
PIT; fruits and nuts, $5,824;
manufactures. Of fibers, 81, ,7O3;
manufactures of silk, $2,486;