The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-07-06
STUDY IN COMPARISONS
Wonderful Possibilities of the Foreign Trade of the U. s. Our Railroad Mileage OnGD Third of Worlds Total.

Washington, D. C.. July 6----In the basic clements of economic progress the United States ranks high among the nations of the. world. being one, an area in excess of million square miles, and the only nation of the wes- tern world (except Russia) having population of over 100 million. In the Interchange of products among its own people it leads the world it's estimated at nearly 40 billion dollars, or equal to the international ex- changes of the world and apprcxi- mately 10 times the value of OUT own foreign trade now valued at 4 billion dollars.
 far short of the immediate possi bfli- ties of the nation Is evident from a consideration of it's area, commerce, and other economic factors in com
 par1son with that of other leading countries, as set forth in comparative table published in the ''Stat1stical Alp stract of the United States, 1913," complied by the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. Department of Commerce.. Thus the present e5r- port trade of the United States @ 1-2 billion doIlars) represents about $26 per capita A per capita basis equal to that of Argentina would raise the export power of the United States to 5 billion dollars. and one equal,to that of Belgium would bring it's exports to 10 billion dollars a year; while our aggregate foreign trade. when
 upon R per capita basis as large as that of Canada would be considerably
 over billion dollars a. year.
 Other comparative tables in the
 statistical Abstract further empha- size the commercial. power of the United States and it's strong interna,- tionaI position. Tn railway mileage, for example we possess one third Of the worlds total, our 25s. .O0O miles being ten times as much as the Tnile- age of the United Kingdom and six times that of Germany. One oorn- pany alone has 25s,O00 miles of tele- graph lines, or double the total in Ruszias next in order. More than one third of the worlds mail service Is performed upon routes located in the United States. while our public debt of one billion dollars is smaller than that of Italy, Austria Hum gary,
 Spain, Germany, Australia, Japan,
 British India or Great Britain, and is
 less than one-sixth that of France. and one-fourth that of Russia
 Temporary recessions have fre- quently marked the course of Ameri- can commerce. but the tendency, ac- cording to historical tables published in the Statistical Abstract, is over higher Tn II years, from 1890 to T
 1-2 billion to 3 1-4 billion dollars an Increase Of 50 per cent, while in the
 II years from 1902 to 1918 1t i'm creased from 3 IA to 1-4 bilHcns, gain of 90 per cent.
 The foundations of this growth are laid deep in the soil and natural re-. sources of our country and in the character of our people. Thus the American Union, from 13 states hav- ing s25 thousand square miles and 1 million people, has expanded to 48 states and the territories of Alaska Porto Rico. and Eawaii with an area Of 2-S nillfcn square miles and 100 million people In the period since 1870 the value of our farm products
 has risen from ? billion to about 10 billion dollars a year; the output of coal from less than 30 to nearly 500
 million long tons; copper from 12 1-2 thousand to over one-haf million tons; pig iron from 2 to 31 million tons. petroleum from 221 million to t9 1-4 billion gallons; and manufac-
 lures from 4 billion to oyer 20 billion l dollars.