Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-08-09
OUR FOREIGN TRADE
Denied That There is Cause
for Anxiety.
THE CASE OF GERMANY
ALLEGED LACK OF ECONOMIC
REASONS FOR CHANGING TARIFF
Opposition of tie Home Market Club
to the Proposed Reciprocity Con-
. ference at Chicago.

lHulCdtiSe VI the desperate uSut WHICH ZIG
high protective tariff interests are making
against the coming reciprocity conference
at Chicago is a pamphlet issued by the
Home Market Club of Boston, which. with
the American Protective Tariff League. is
fighting the reciprocity and tariff revision
movements, tooth and nail. This pamphlet
is by Albert Clarke, secretary Of the Home
Market Club, and some time chairman OF
the late industrial commission. Referring
to the coming reciprocity convention the
pamphlet says:
The packers, or the so-called beef trust.
and the so-called harvester trust are said
to be the real movers. Be this as 1t may,
they have their rights and they represent
great industries which contribute to our
general prosperity. hence a discussion of
the subject should be Invested Of all
prejudice and candid attention should be
given to the facts upon which alone the
question ought to be determined
ITO begin with, there is little or no cause
for anxiety about European markets. There
is but small foundation for the statement
in the call for the conference that one by
one the European governments e>tighten-
ing the coils intended to strange the Ameri-
can export trade in agricultural products
and manufactured goods Our government
has not received notice of the purpose of
any European government to terminate it's
commercial treaty with the United States
and there is no evidence that their tariffs
have been aimed especially against this
country. We must recognize their right to
protect their own industries
Trade With Germany.
The pamphlet shows that the principal
United States exports Indispensable to Ger
many amount to $151 800 S73 and the prIn-
cipal exports not Indispensable to Germany
amount to $f3.6S7,272 The pamphlet con-
tinues:
DeductinS the indispensables from Ger
many's total import from the United States,
there is left only $61 0O6 I'll which puts
us under any sort of obligation to buy from
her, and We buy 500, 1SS 544. Of which we
admit $27,4s1,d27 free of duty. Does not
this show conclusively that she is faring
better in the competitive trade than we
are? Even If we should treat none of our
breadstufS, provisions and wood manufac-
lures as Indispensable to her, and put them
all into the competitive class we would still
be buying twenty-seven millions from her
more than she buys of aus of the class Of
goods that either country could dispense
with just about as well as not.
IheSe facts being SO, there never was
a clearer case of lack of commercial and
economic reasons for changing our tariff or
making a new treaty. That these facts
are recognized in Germany appears In our
consul generals report. He states that the
chief demand for terminating the treaty
under which we can have the benefit of the
lowest new rates granted to other countries
comes from the farmers. who think Ger
many is treated unfairly because we buy
from her less than one-half as much as we
sell to her. Apparently they have not ana
lyzed the trade as above set forth, and
since their ground disappears by such anal
ysfs their claim has not a good standing.
But on the other hand says Mr.. Mason,
the commercial and Industrial classes gen.
orally, the manufacturers who appreciate
the importance of cheap goods for their
Wn nd riaI1 fbn
chant steamship companies of Bremen and
Hamburg, whose prosperity hangs upon
their direct freight and passenger traffic
with the United States-these like most
government officials and the majority of
educated men the various liberal pro-
fessions, who appreciate the value Of close
and friendly relations between the two
countries, are opposed to drastic policy
that might lead to reprisals and, moreover,
increase the cost of bread.
Can Hit Harder Than Germany.
Here, then, are the probabilities: The
weight of evidence, found in the trade it
self. and the influence of the intelligent and
governing classes in Germany, a long ana
successful experience under existing regu-
lations and the power of the United States
to strike a harder blow than Germany can
strike, If necessary-ail make for continued
steadiness unless we become hysterical and
pan1cky.
Arguments for reciprocity in competing
products urge more buying that there may
be more selling, not needing the fact that
every pound and yard of goods brought from
abroad which might as well have been pro-
duced here dispaces yard or a pound
that would have been produced by Ameri-
can labor, fed on domestic farm products
and contributing to the prosperity OF all
classes in the community. Foreign trace
Is desirable il 1t does not cost too much.
But to barter for it any part of the home
market has ALWAYS been fOnDH n n
greater loss than profit. while the willing
ness to cut the duties that protect some
other mans industry. in order to gain for
ones own industry a little greater field
abroad has been aptly likened to Artemus
Wards patriotic willingness that his wife's
relations might go to the war.
Conflict in Interests.
This conflict of interest is far more in
tense in the cutting of duties than In the
prosperous working of an impartial and
broadly national tariff For example, the
western packers and farmers are said to
be a unit in favor OF preserving the duty
on hides But the committee of one hun
dfed In Boston, whose delegates will be
In the Chicago conference. has made the
repeal Of the hide duty one of its chief
demands for tariff revision and reciprocity
These conflicting interests can hardly be
brought together on that subject, but when
1t comes to carving up the cotton, WOODEN
pa per. lumber and iron manufacturers and
their millions of employees they can get
on beautifully. until they begin to encounter
resistance.
The first lesson that the Chicago confer
ence must learn is that the whole country
has to be reckoned with. No half dozen in
terests, however large, are going to change
or control the tariff policy OF this great ma
ton. The next lesson must be that every
industry which Is exposed to foreign COM
petition Is entitled to fair and adequate pro-
lection. The next Is that protection must