Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1909-09-30
CAMEL CARAVAN LOADED WITH J
COTTON GOODS EWROUYE HR UBEH

t requires no salesman or advertising to make raw cot
on popular in all industrial centers from Manchester
o Milan, and eastward to Japan. If we did not have
a plank af1oat we could sell raw cotton to the world.
America is not a serious competitor for trade oversee.
In all the annals of national pride and delusion there
has been no greater folly than the present popular be-
lief in the United States that we have engineered a
commercial invasion abroad. The trading nations must
have our cotton and while upward of 100 tariff walls
fence them off in their rivalry they all fear America
and carefully put raw cotton on the free list.
There has been a notable increase in the bulk of
our foreign commerce, but we have merely kept pace
with the whole worlds advance. In fact it is the prog
ress in purchasing power of foreign nations that has
made possible our heavy exports of raw materials. We
have been boasting of outborne cargoes that enriched
our rivals far more than they did America. When we
cite the mere totals of our foreign trade without exam
lining the nature of that traffic we blind ourselves to
the magnificent field awaiting American enterprise
abroad.
The rivalry for foreign markets, the improvements
in the facilities for reaching them and cotton's marvel.
GUS contribution to merchandise have so revolutionized
the worlds trade that the commerce of former cen
turtles is insignificant in comparison. The foreign traf.
tic of any of the leading industrial nations to-day ex-
ceeds in volume and value the total foreign trade of all.
countries combined a hundred years ago! The annual
external trade of even so diminutive a country as the
Netherlands exceeds the billion-dollar mark. And this
astounding increase in the trade of nations, creating vr-
tually a new earth, is due in large measure to the vol.
ume of cotton manufacture and the worldwide sale of
cotton goods. We fail to keep in mind that in that
Worlu tIdLlC America does not snare. We have been
boasting of mere bulk-boasting while we have been
sending to industrial Europe the raw supply without
which it could not compete with America for a year.
Gladstone estimated that the wealth accumulated by
the nations during the first SO years of the nineteenth
century equaled all that had been stored up by mankind
in the preceding 1900 years, and that their multiplying
fortunes between 1850 and 1870 duplicated the record
of the foregoing fifty. So that in those 10 years the in
crease of the worlds wealth exceeded by 100 per cent.
the piled-up treasures of all lands in all the preceding
centuries since the birth of Christ. And the accumt1Ja-
tions since 1870 are literally beyond compute.
Such a world with its consuming power is the market
that confronts America, the country that alone possesses
the commodity Indispensable to the nations, Thus far
we have neglected our stewardship. During the last
fiscal year we sold to the old world only a little over
$4,000,000 worth of finished cotton goods. Our best Gus
toner in that part of the world was the United King
dom, which bought from us 1883, 1884 worth. But while
we were growing foolishly proud over that, England was
selling US $23, 165,392 worth Of cotton goods spun Of our
material. The tented columns, placed side by side, are
a reproach to resourceful America. Here is the record.
preserved by our bureau Of statistics: