, 1922-06-13
DON'T Surrender Home Markets

SHALL WE continue mainly to develop the home
~ market reserving it particularly for our own
producers or shall we enter more actively into the
competitive scramble for foreign trade, which
would mean n corresponding reduction of the bar
riers against outside producers?
The current iSsue of the Review of Reviews edi-
toriaIfy puts the above question to the American
public. It also furnishes its own answer to the
question and buttresses the answer by logical facts
which should claim the earnest attention of every
American, whether he be n manufacturer, an in
dustrial worker, a farmer or a business man. The
editorial traces the growth of the development of
the United States prior to the world war. Upon
this point it says in part:
For some years before the great war we were
growing toward a balanced economic life; that is
to say, our great agricultural states were building
cities, diversfying their industries and depending
less and less upon selling their products in mar
kets thousands of miles distant. Quite apart from
an economic and political theory there was a pre-
valent business instinct which made it seem to be
n good thing to have steady markets at home rather
than to be seeking outlets for surplus goods in mar
kets that were under the control of distant govern
meuts and subject to all sorts of varying factors
of competition"
Then came the war, which the editorial points
out changed the viewpoint of things. Our agricul-
tural producers in common with our industries
we're urged to speed up their production and cut
down their home consumption in order that the
surplus might be sold to Europe at high prices.
Even after the war a certain school of politicians
Kept up the agitation that Europe would continue
to need our stuff more than ever. Continuing, the
Review of Reviews editorially points out that what
ever may have been the demand in Europe for the
products of our farm and factory during the war
and Immediately following it, this demand no long
er exists in pressing proportions. speaking
broadly says the Review of Reviews, Hthe Europ-
can peoples are industrious and skillful: and be
ing too poor to buy high priced supplies from the
United States they have worked harder to meet
their own needs and they will never buy from us
again. In their present humble state they work
longer hours for less pay to make goods for export
at reduced prices with which American industries
viii not be able to compete"
During the half to three quarters of a century
prior to the world war Great Britain had built up
as an industrial nation. Her policies were all for
multed to that end, but in later years prior to the
war her industrial supremacy was seriously threat
ened. Germany had become a formidable Compel
itor. Moreover, as the editorial points out, the
United States, under its protective tariff, had de-
veloped into an industrial nation which outstripped
Great Britain. The war wrought changes in the
economic life of Europe and the world that were
as titanic as were the political changes. However.
it left America the undisputed industrial leader
people. Our industrial supremacy is the object of
those nations which were formerly formidable in
dustrial cometitors-England and Germany. Shall
the United States abandon those policies which
made it industrially strong at the bidding of her
European competitors? Shall the people of this
country be misled by the propaganda which is be-
ing so widely disseminated in favor of letting down
the bars to European producers in order that they
may exploit the American market and take it away
from the producer? Shall We drop what we have
namely, our tremendously valuable domestic mar,