Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1907-02-21
WORLDS MILCH cow
AMERICA DRAINED FOR BENEFIT
OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES.
Enormous Sums Sent Each Year by
Foreign Born Wage Farmers in
the United States to Their
Relatives Abroad.

York Tribune of Jan. 49, 1t would GER
tainly seem that she is furnishing
milk for all creation in increasing
quantities. The American Economist
has already shown that in the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1906, the huge
sum of 1868, 7,S67 went out of the
United States in the shape of postal
money orders payable abroad, and
that the total of such orders issued
in the seven fat protection years, 1900
to 1906, inclusive, was $249, 14S,0S2,
against total of $112, 2,5S6,5 5S5 for the
eight leaner years from 1892 to 1899,
inclusive, years made leaner by free
trade tariff legislation. Attention was
also drawn to the fact that with the
addition of money mailed in registered
letters, in express money orders and
in bank drafts of small amounts the
total sent back to Europe by our for
eign born wage earners would prob
ably not fall far short of $100,000,000
in 1906.
From figures published by the Aus
tro-Hungarian Colonial society it ap.
pears that in 1903 the Temittances of
Austrians and Hungarians settled in
America amounted to $33,000,000
while the gross value of Austro-Hun-
garian exports to America in the same
year amounted to only $9,O00,0O0. 1t
thus falls out that the poorly paid
workers of continental Europe yield
far greater profit to their former
home countries after emigrating to
the United States than if they had
never emigrated.
1t is, moreover, true, as the Trib-
une points out, that considerable
percentage of our immigrants remain
in this country only long enough to
accumulate savings that will enable
them to go back and spend the re-
mainder of their lives in the mother
land. All told, the money remitted
abroad and the money carried abroad
by returning wage earnerS must
amount to a rather formidable sum
each year.
This sum must then be added to the
already great bulk of our foreign fixed
charges, such as payments to foreign
steamship companies for carrying
American passengers and freights, es
timated at $200,000,000 a year, the in
terest and dividends on foreign invest
ments in the United States, and the
sums spent abroad by American tour
lists. When al these items of outgo
are footed up they reach a total so
great as to seriously affect the ques-
tion of national debts and credits.
,r.t, 10 f1,, oh n1,,tI
sity of protection trade balances aver
aging $500,000000 year, represent
ing our excess of exports over imports
If we bought where we sold, as the
free traders and "reformers" would
have us do; II we entered upon the
system of increasing our foreign trade
through the acceptance of larger i'm
ports in payment for our exports; If,
for example, our 81, $50 100000 of sales
abroad were Cancelled by $l750,0 900
of purchases abroad, how would we
then meet our foreign fixed charges of
at least $400,000,000 year? We could
not meet them except by running into
debt deeper and deeper through bond
issues to cover annual deficits.
AS the case now stands, our protec-
tion trade balance is ample to take
care of our foreign liabilities and leave
something over with which to buy
back American securities held abroad.
Instead of going deeper into debt, as
would inevitably be the case if we did
not restrict competitive imports by a
protective tariff, we are gradually pay
ing our debts owed abroad, while at
the same time enormously increasing
our wealth at home.
The Tribune proposes le remedy for
the heavy outflow of American money
in the form of remittances abroad by
vase earners of foreign birth. Nor do
we know of any way to prevent for
eigners from coming here and earning
big wages and sending them back to
Europe unless it be by restricting i'm
migration or prohibiting it altogether.
| In the present condition of the labor
market, when three jobs are looking
for two men, that remedy does not
seem feasible.
Yes; there is another remedy. Re-
wise the tariff downward; approach a
| free trade basis; reduce prices of COM
modities; reduce wages, and the $780,
100000 of annual remittances abroad
by American wage earners will rapid
ly dwindle to one-quarter of that sum,
or less. The tide of immigrants seek
ing work will also fall away. But that,
too, is a remedy which all excepting
| free traders and "reformers" will
| shrink from applying. So it would
seem that the American COW must
continue to give milk to all mankind.
Fortunately, through protection to
American labor and industry, the cow
has enough and to spare.