New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-01-29
SELLING ABROAD FOR
PROSPERITY AT HOME
Measuring the Economic Importance of For
eign Sales to the Domestic turnover
What the Loss Of Our World
Markets Would Mean

The $4,000, 100000 Of bank clearings
should be remembered here. Sir George
Paish a few years ago estimated the
income Of the people Of this country
at $4,000, 100000 a year II Professor
Fisher is correct, also Sir George Paish,
this nations profit is z per cent on the
gross business it turns over.
According to the latest census re-
turns available in detail, there we're
3s,167, 1886 persons in the United States
busy with gainful occupations out of
II, 5sO,27O Of working age. OF these,
24,317 900 were directly engaged in the
production of raw materials and manu-
features, and some 8,250,0o0 more were
busy in transportation and trade, ieav-
ing fewer than 100000 whose liveli-
hoods were gained in professional, gov
eminent and domestic service. Over
so. 500, 900 were then part Of the ma
chinery Of production Of goods, for
railway transportation is largely an in
cident in the ensemble Of a national
production and manufacture, and so IS
trade, including banking.
Need of Steady Production
About SO per cent Of our working
population was directly dependent for
a steady livelihood upon the steady
continuance Of production and market
ing into consumption Of the s37,S62,-
955,o24 worth of materials and goods
produced. That the livelihood OF the
other 100000, or IA per cent of work
ers, with the families dependent on
them. is almost directly dependent as
10 steady income on the business in
tangible goods enumerated Is pretty
well automatic. II is not necessary 70
say that the lawyers, government en-
ployes, clergymen, physicians, educa-
tors, artists, writers Of books, actors
and other public and private servants
are also i'm reality part of the great
national machinery of production,
stimulating and adding TO the efficiency
or morale of the forces of direct pro-
ducton. We can say that they are a
necessity, or inevitable in modern civ
ilization. At any rate, the prosperity
of these depends directly, also, upon
the gainful production and movements
into consumption Of the tangible re-
suits of the work of the people. We
are all in the same boat. Cut four TO
six billions out of that thirty-eight
billions of production and movement
and every one Of US suffers a diminu-
tion of the opportunity of selling what
we have trained ourselves to produce,
whether goods or skilled services. And
if the four to six billion drop, or even
a drop of single billion, should come
suddenly, the disorganization Of the
orderly occupation of the people would
intensity the loss Of general prosperity.
Disturbance of confidence, unemploy-
meNJ OF the direct lOserS, anu Olner
elements would quickly make them
selves felt throughout the whole coun-
try.
Men who are in touch with the every
day movement Of production and trade
were not so much astonished that one
of our leading economists should have
attempted to measure the gross move
ment Of our products when the amount
Of production is a measure that is
much more certain as they we're that,
in considering the Importance OF for
eign sales, he took what is now Oh
billions Of our production, dependent
directly upon the foreign sale for its
production and movement, and counted
that only once, when the other forty
billions or SO had been expanded ten
times in order to cover the gross turr-
over.