The New York herald., 1921-11-01

or supply.
Our Canada Export Troubles.
Our exports OF actual goods never
went up in the dazzling foreign trade
boom as they seemed to go expressed
in dollars. The outward shipments
of commodities as such are not now
always down, as the dollars involved
again make them appear to be. We
got more money then for anything
and everything we sold abroad. Now
we get less. But the volume Of work
given to our industries and our labor
by our foreign trade is properly
measured not in dollar marks but in
tons, bales, barrels and bushels.
Nevertheless. foreign trade dollar
marks can signify disturbance
very distinctly. They can show the
velocity of the. rise or the fall of both
imports and exports as measured
against each other. 1t is not neces-
sarily either bad thing or an un-
desirable thing when an export value
Of goods to given country drops
from $4,000, 900, say, to $1,000.O00. It
may be very good thing. The higher
cost may have been throttling the ex-
port volume Of such goods, thereby
shutting down some Of our factories
and shortening their payrolls. The
lower cost may stimulate our produc-
tion for foreign trade, thus opening
factories and lengthening payrOlls.
And such increase of home produc-
tion is yeast for a general industrial
Quickening.
But when in given case the dol
lar marks of our exports 60 down
very much faster than the dollar
marks of our imports 60 down we
have a danger signal. Our trade
with Canada right now is waving a
red flag.
Canadian values are not very far
apart from our own. If, therefore,
we lose two dollars Of sales to Can
ada for every dollar Of sales that
Canada loses to us we are moving
decidedly in the wrong direction.
This is exactly what we have been
doing in respect of our trade with
the Dominion; in fact, for every dol
lar that Canada's exports to us have
gone down in the last year our ex-
ports to Canada have gone down two
dollars and quarter. The Canadian
loss was 100000, 900; our loss was
S246, ,000, 900.
And Canada, let us not forget, had
become our second biggest and best
customer in the whole world. With
our Canadian exports of approx
mately a billion of dollars in a year,
only the United Kingdom surpassed
Canada in the volume and value of
goods bought from us. The whole
Of South America, with Mexico, Cen
trail America and the. West Indies
thrown in, did not equal Canada as
q buyer in the markets of the United
States. Now the relative swing is
heavily against us.
What is the answer? Well, for one
thing, we have plastered loans all
over other countries which never can
be normal customers of ours, while we
have been stingy with credits to the
one country destined naturally to be
our very first customer.
For another thing, we have put up
trade barriers particularly irksome
and exasperating when strung along
our northern border, trying to shut
out imports from Canada while want
ing to continue our exports into
Canada.
For yet another thing. we still
cling to tariff system good enough
in the days CO economic and financial
stability the world over, but in these
days of European generalization and
disorder archaic and ruinous. We
let pauper wage or debased cur
rency country like Japan or Germany
or Czecho-Slovakia slip its goods
through our custom house with negli-
gible duty payments, but we exact the
limit from a solvent, dear labor coun-
try like Canada.
II this is good business the two dol
lars and a quarter of export loss on
our part to every dollar of loss on
Canada's part does not show that 1t
is. II it is not bad business, then
taking work away from our indus
tries and labor which turn out the
goods for export is good business.
This country needs to give care to
any of. its foreign trade that begins
to look as sick as our trade with
Canada looks.