The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-03-03
THE .AMERIcAN INVASION.
No Such Effect Exists on the Commel
 cfal Life of EurOpe


 of delusion more amazinfi than that pre- valent fallacy in America that we have engineered commercial invasion of the Old World,' says Harold Bolce in Appleton's Magazine He goes on The semi-developed republic of Argentina and Brazil buy more actual factory goods from Europe than Europe buys from us. The profit on our $200.0o0. 900 of manufactures sold to Europe In about $40,000,0O0 per year. That na- tionally is a paltry sum.
 One of the reasons why reciprocity Is opposed is that America imagines il has built up splendid foreign com merce, and that having preserved and extended that trade without making tariff concessions, 1t is obviously not necessary to make overtures to the Powers. The picruresqueness of many. of our cargoes has appealed to the American mind. Hamburg has cabled at times to Chicago for sauerkraut, California has sold Rhine wine to France, Ireland has imported potatoes from Maine, and files made in Provi- dence have been sold in Sheffield All of this gives piquant emphasis to prideful speeches and essays, but 1t is significant only Of one phase of inter nationaIIsm. Over our traffic wall. erected as a barrier against foreign goods, we imported in the fiscal year 1906 dutiable articles values at $676,- y39,965 That was $21T, 100000 more than the value of our manufactures sold to all foreign nations.
 There have been many optimistic arguments that the loom beside the cotton field has an advantage over the loom across the sea. Theoretically America with its thousands of miles of seacoast indented with fine harbors, should send it's ships to supply the nations with cotton goods, since we pro- duce three fourths of the earths raw cotton But note the facts.
 Considerable importance was given to the unquestionably interesting fact that the banner floating over the Mika- dos palace, and the Union Jack on Windsor Castle, were both held to the breeze by a flagstaff cut near Puget Sound It seems amazing that such statement should beguile the American mind from the serious statistics of to- taIs in foreign commerce. Such bf- zarre triumphs can easily be matched in exports from other lands to Amer lea. Our Fourth of July celebration of the founding of Christian democ- racy is made glorious with fireworks exported from the pagan Mongolian Empire, for instance.
 If the traveller will look vigilantly enough he will find American cotton on the coast of Somaliland. In Abyssinia a certain kind of American cotton is u standard of money, probably because of It's scarcity in that region. It Is pleasing to the American ear, this news that the slaves of Africa the camels of the desert, the reindeer of Lapland. the lamas of Peru, the yaks of Tibet and the dogs of the Arctic Circle, take up freight where the roads terminate and carry American goods to the limits .NE hah a fnsts hFff WhAtaUar goes to these distant parts of the earth from the United States is tri- umph of enterprise on the part of the buyer. America has not sought this traffic We are indifferent even to the trade opportunities that lie at the door of the Atlantic. We have permitted our exports to Brazil to decline: our entire trade with South America is Q pitifuI fiasco. Argentina alone buys more textiles from Europe than w" export to the whole world, and the value. moreover, of these textiles bought by Argentina exceeds that value of American commerce of every descrip- tion going into all ports south of the Isthmus. We have not even secured the trade of our own colonial islands of Asia. The trade we have there Is in the main the result of sales to Americans who have gone to the Phil ippines, and who, if they had remained in America, would have purchased tho same commodities, at a greater profit to the purchaser in this country. Our foreign commerce has been made up largely of raw materials needed by the other nations With our raw copper, Germany has been electrifying the world with our raw motion, England and Germany. Sv-S,zerland and France and even Italy. have been making gar ments for all Christendom and the Pagan East
 The cause of all this spectacle of foreign nations turning out the finished goods from raw materials industriously supplied by America, is that our whole external commerce has been merely tn- cdental in our progress and prosperity. The majority of the American people has been indifferent to foreign trade.
 and consequently to reciprocity, be- cause so deeply preoccupied on our own continent, figuring up the totals of our own industrial, financial and commer- cial successes An American In New York who sought in 1905 to inaugurate a new regime in foreign trade, dis 1 covered a big opening for certain | article in Russia, and forthwith wrote | to 50 American manufacturers telling i them to quote prices. Only fifteen re | piled. and Tn substance they all sato | that they were too busy to consider
 foreign demands. A former Assistant Secretary of state, upon ms return | from a visit to the grain fields of Ar l, gentina and the greater prairies of ! Brazil, told me that he urged his fla l ther-in-law. a manufacturer of blows to look into the South American op- | portunity. The swift reply came that | the agricultural implement makers of the United States could not supply the insistent demands of American farm 1 CTS.
 1 Tt Is not that America is behind | other countries in enterprise A rail way from New York to Chicago, or | from Chicago 10 Omaha. yields greater returns than a steamship line around
 the world. We have boasted that l American locomotives whistle past the | Pyramids and frighten condors in the