The Montgomery tribune. (Montgomery City, Mo.) 1892-1910, 1907-03-29
OUR FOREIGN TRADE
WORLD MARKETS COMPARED
WITH THE DOMESTIC MARKET.
Before We Can Greatly Increase Our
Nearly $4,000, ooo, 900 Of Exports
We Shall BE Obliged to Reduce
Wages In Order to Lower the Cost
Of Production.

ADDTONlHSly tne dSulHStOH IOSt
quotes the Omaha Bee as warning the
interests that are clamorous for ship
subsidy that big foreign trade and
highly protected domestic trade are
inconsistent and cannot long exist to-
gether." The Post adds:
Foreign trade means exchange of
products, and it means nothing else.
Before 1t "a prosper, the duties on
such products in the tariff schedules
must be enormously decreased.
$50 it is reduced to this: We must
let the foreign trade slide or abandon
tariff for protection only, with incl
dental revenue
Neither the Bee nor the Post seems
to have kept IN mind the fact that a
rather big foreign trade and a very
big protected domestic trade are 60
ing so we'll together that in a little
less than ten years of unbroken pro-
lection our foreign trade has prac-
tically doubled. Under a protective
tariff we buy of foreign countries
goods of the value of 81 300, 900 900 a
year. and of these imports more than
$500, 100000 worth are competitive
Under a protective tariff we sell to
the outside world of our products
more than $1,000, 900, 900 worth a year.
This makes our total exchange of
products amount to considerably more
than SO, 1000, 900, 900. If we should enor-
mously decrease our duties on COM
petitive products and abandon our tar
iff for protection with incidental rev.
enue for a tariff for evenu with
practically no protection, we should
be paying a heavy price for such in
crease-if any-of foreign trade as
might result from such a lapse back
ward to free trade. Could we afford
to pay the price? Could we maintain
our present purchasing power alike
for foreign and domestic products
after we had reduced the American
standard of wage earning through the
necessity of competing with the prod
ucts of foreign payrolls averaging one
half the American payroll? Most GER
tainly not. In such a condition we
should doubtless by heavy wage re-
auctions continue to supply our W
necessities of the cheaper grades, but
u purchases Of foreign luxuries
would fall off enormously as a conse-
quence of a vastly diminished volume
of wage payments.
We are inclined to agree with the
Omaha Bee that a big" foreign trade,
a trade swelled to twice or thrice the
current $4,000, 000, 900 dimensions by
means of heavy increases in Il ex-
ports of manufactures, will never
come while protection remains to
guard a domestic market worth $780,
600. 900, 900. To put it another way,
our country will never be able to mo-
nopolize the manufacturing of the
world while our wage rate is kept at
a figure more than double the wage
rate of the rest of the world. If this
is what the Bee ean by a "big"
foreign trade we are of the same
opinion.
In order to quickly or greatly in
crease our exports of manufactures
we should be compelled to lower our
production cost; that is, u labor
cost. Even then the desired result
might not be realized. A general
reduction of labor cost in the United
States would inevitably be followed
by a corresponding reduction of labor
cost in every competing country. In
consequence we should have a uni
versal reduction of wages and stand
ards of living, a universal decrease OF
purchasing and consuming power
while the fight for both domestic and
foreign markets would continue un.
abated. The only difference would be
that the contest would be conducted
on a lower basis of labor cost. By sc
much the whole world would be the
poorer. Nothing gained; much lost.
We do not think the American PEG
pie will soon decide to purchase {
"big" foreign trade at such a frightfu
cost. 1t is far more likely that W.
shall-with occasional lapses int
tariff reform" folly, such as the laps
of 1892, and the threatened lapse o
190S-continue to keep our wag'
standard and our standard of buying
and consuming up to the protection
level, while at the same time steadil.
increasing the bulk of our dealing
with other nations because of a great
err ability to crafty our tastes and de
sires for articles of foreign produc
ton. Is not that a more desirable re
suit than to struggle for a "big" fol-
eign trade that we cannot and ough
not to get-for foreign labor as wei
as our own labor has a right to b
employed-a trade that would cos
far more than it was worth? There 1
not much doubt as to the reply of tn
voters to such a question.