Arizona republican., 1905-05-17
Our Industrial Future.

The soHdlty of our growth as an exporting and manufacturing nation is often questioned by economists of the free trade school. who hold that so long as we maintain a tariff against the rest of the world we can never create a genuine or permanent foreign market. It is impossible for us, they say. to push the sale abroad of our manufactured products. Other coun- tries may, perhaps, continue to buy our raw materials and food staples but when we begin to consume our own food suplies our foreign commerce will dwindle and the balance of trade, now so striNingly in our favor, will be turned more and more decisiVely against us. Ex-Judge Parker on the stump last fall pictured the rapid ap proach of the period when our "delu- sive. balance of trade is to vanish ana 'idleness and demoraliZation" are to overwhelm our industries.
 It is rather difficult to reconcile this forecast of decay with the facts dis closed in a bulletin just issued by the bureau of statistics of the department of commerce and labor. This bulletin summarizes our progrSSs for the last twenty-four years as a manufacturing and exporting nation, and exhibits the solid basis on which our present indus trial and commercial supremacy rests. Though during all this period we have lived under a high tariff, our total for eign commerce has increased from $1,- 5OO.OO0, 900 to 2.5OO. .O0O.O 900. The worlds foreign commerce has in the same period increased from s15 1000, 900, 900 to S22,OOO, ,0OO, ,O00, so that our share of the total expansion has been relatively greater than that of any of our com mercial rivals. Nor has this growth been in any sense fortuitous. It is not, as Judge Parker contended. a "delus- ion," sure to be exposed as soon as our agricultural surplus vanishes- We have become a great manufacturing and exporting nation because our nat ural resources and aptitudes equip us for playing a commanding industrial role. That nation has an enormous advantage in industry which can ob- tain most freely and cheapIy the min eral products which enter so largely into manufacture-coal pig iron. cop per, lead, zinc, petroleum and the pre- cious metals-and in the exploitation of these resources the United States has made extraordinary progress in the last twenty-four years.
 ooo1 rr-oS OOO,OOO tons. In 1903 it had risen to 319,O00, 900 tons. The worlds produc- tion had increased, meanwhile, from 33O, ,OO0. 900 to S66 ,0O0. 900 tons, so that the United States furnished in 1880 20 per cent of the worlds total and in 1903 37 per cent. The percentage of the worlds supply of pig iron produced in the United States rose from 20 in 1880 to 39 in 1903; the percentage of copper from IS to 50; of petroleum from Is to 51. The United States to- day produces 37 per cent of the worlds coal, 39 per cent of it's pig iron, 51 per cent of its copper, 25 per cent of its zinc, 25 per cent of it's silver and 19 per cent of it's gold.
 These figures demonstrate the solidi- ty and security of our industrial growth. With our resources and op- portunities we shall continue to forge ahead as a manufacturer and export CT. There is no danger that our bal ance of trade will shrink, even if we cease gradually to send abroad our surplus raw products. We shall make good by increased sales of manufac tured raw materials. We shall lead the world in manufactures and exports, because we have the richest natural stores to draw on and can command in every branch of industry the most efficient and most intelligent labor.