New-York tribune., 1906-05-19
orr cAJys IN FORETGy TRADE.

It is amusing to recall. in the light of the
foreign trade statement for April, the dOleful
pictures of American isolation and stagnatiOn
which, since the passage of the Dingley law,
economists of the Mills-C -Cleveland-John Sharp
Williams school have delighted in drawing.
These philosophers told us that the Dingley
tariff was found to act as a stopper on foreign
trade; for IL proposed to buy as little as
possible abroad should soon find that other
nations would purchase as little as possible from
us The Dingley measure was described as a
measure for the suppression of foreign COM
merce. and even late as 1904 were in
formed on high Democratic authority that it was
an impertinence on our part to instruct our con-
suls and other representatives abroad to keep
their eyes open for chances to extend this coun-
try's foreign market.
The April statement, issued the other day,
gives opportunity to compare conditions to-
day with conditions a decade ago, when the
Wilson-GOrman Tariff law, embodying in part
the ideas of the Dflls-C Cleveland Williams school,
was still in undisturbed operation. From the
statistics given It appears that in the ten months
ending April 80, 1896, our exports amounted in
value to 749,332,S04 and our imports to $685.
30O,O75. The balance of trade In our favor was
$S3,O32, ,739. The election of 1895 wrote the
death warrant Of the Wilson-Gorman measure
and in 1897 the commerce suppressing' Dingley
law was enacJeQ. Yet commerce mas somehow
refused to be suppressed. In the ten months
ending April 80, 1906 our exports amounted in
value to $1.4SS 1893 500 and our imports to ST.
O20.8S1 1876. The balance of trade in our favor
was $467, ,512, ,164. Our exports have actually
doubled in value in the decade, while our i'm
ports show an increase in value of 65 per cent
The fiscal year 1905-08, as The Tribune has
several times predicted, will break all records
in our foreign trade. The total for exports and
imports will fall little short of S3,OOO,OOO,OOO-
against total in 19O4-O5 Of 81 635 100000 and
total ten years ago of 81. .532 100000. AS seller
of products the United States now leads the
world. Figures just issued by the Bureau Of
Statistics Of the Department Of Commerce and
Labor show that our average monthly expOrta-
tiOn in the nine months ending March 81, 1906,
was $147,2OS,973. April's high record brings the
average up to about $149,OO0,OO0. For the
United Kingdom, our nearest rival, the average
expectation for the nine-mOnth period
$143.574,912, while for Germany it was $11O-
777,S0O In the value Of imports we rank third
among the nations, the United Kingdom being
first and Germany second The United King
dOm's average monthly importation for the first
nine months of 19O5-'O6 was $241. .39O.911 Ger
many's was $133,47S,3 1873; ours was $1O1, 500 Az.
First in exports and third in imports is record
which gives the United States a far from neg
ligible role in international exchanges. Theories,
however stubbOrnly held, must yield to facts,
and it is time to drop the ludicrOus contention
that under the Dingley law we have made no
prOgress-and could hope to make no progress
in foreign trade.