The New York herald., 1921-06-01
WEDNESDAY. JUNE l. 1921.
If We Kill Our Foreign Trade.

The American tariff system is
solidly imbedded in the very founda-
tions OF this nation. 1t is sounder.
a more workable and a more perma-
nent policy for the United States than
for any other country perhaps. be-
cause it operates here within the
common national boundary and
under the single flag of what are in
effect nearly half hundred coun-
tries, the States, Joined in an insepa-
rable whole.
Let State of this country abound
In cotton or grain. let another be
opulent in iron or copper ores, let
still another gush fountains of oil;
let mills hum in this one or furnaces
roar in that one; let one bloom with
fruits and far away rival be clothed
In forests-let the State of the
North, of the South, the Atlantic sea-
board or the Pacific seaboard bring
forth what it may out OF the bounti-
eul earth or by mechanical magic,
and always 1t has free markets in
number. They are the richest and
the greatest markets in all the world,
here on our own continent behind
the border that includes those COM
monwealths with more than a hun
dred million population, which pro-
duces, consumes. lives and thrives In
measure known to no other race or
group OF races IN COPS footstool.
If one could fancy the Kingdoms,
the republics and the soviets of the
whole of Europe practising free trade
among themselves, but imposing cer-
tain restrictions on other parts of the
globe seeking commerce in Europe, 1t
would be not unlike this our own
country, with its forty-eight States.
with climates Of infinite variety, nat
ural resources immeasurable and in
dustrial development incompatible.
1t is for this reason that the Ameri-
can tariff system Is both wise and
necessary in its underlying princi-
pies, and in its actual practices has
bSch q ludINSl VI hdIlOudi ouCCeSS.
Nevertheless, these facts loom big
today for our national consideration:
We have expanded our economic
equipment so far beyond our own
needs, we have speeded up our pro-
ductive energies to so swift a pace.
we have builded our surplus creating
engine to so high a power that we
must sell of our excess crops and
goods abroad in a tonnage expressed
in fleets Of ships and in value counted
in billions of dollars, or in large
part both our industrial plants and
our merchant ships must rot, our la
Dor be jobless and the very yield of
our fruitful soil be left to wither in
the fields.
In front OF prohibitive tariff wall
the foreigner that cannot sell to us
cannot buy from us. Since we have
the great bulk of the worlds free
gold he must buy our goods with his
goods, he must buy our very gold
with his goods, or he must seek other
markets than ours in which to buy
as he may sell.
Behind a prohibitive tariff wall the
American manufacturer. the Ameri
can railroad, even the American
farmer cannot do business with our
own industries and wage earners
that may be fiat on their backs be-
cause they have lost the foreign
markets where they formerly sold
what they produced.
Shut out all the foreign agricul-
tural products that have been coming
here to pay for our exported manu-
factured products and still the Amer
ican farmer must meet those foreign
agricultural products in a more in
tense competition than ever Our
wheat growers raise three hundred
million. sometimes four hundred mill.
ion, bushels OF wheat n year more
than this country can consume. The
wheat of Canada or of Argentina that
can no longer come here TO sell and
pay for what Canada or Argentina
buys here is going TO sell somewhere.
II may no longer meet the American
farmers wheat in Chicago or New
York. 1t will meet it in England.
France and Germany. Driven into
the last ditch on foreign market soil
IL will meet II there with a desperate,
cut throat competition.
The American farmer, the Ameri-
can manufacturer, the American
wage earrcS is entitled to the pro.
lection. inherent in the American
tariff system, which serves reasonably
10 QquaIize differences of labor costs
at home and abroad while stimulat-