Smyrna times., 1933-06-28
ONLY IMPORTS
VITAL TO U.S.A.
All The Other Needed Articles
Are Produced Here In
This Country
AMERICA INDEPENDENT


dollar import trade could be cut to
just six vitally necessary articles.
Out of the myriad types of goods
which flow into this country each
year, only a half dozen are abso-
lutte necessities which have no sub
stitute produced at home, which
could not be produced here or which
are not already produced in this
country.
These six articles, listed by the
United States Department of Com
merce, are platinum, tin, manila,
sisal. kapok and rubber. In 1881,
the latest year for which detailed
figures are available, they made up
only 6 per cent of Uncle Sans to-
tai bill for imports. If Americas
impOrtations were suddenly reduced
TO those six commodities, cotton,
the most important export, could
pay for them all twice over.
Coffee, Tea on List.
Another ten articles, which can
not be produced here or for which no
substitute can be produced are list
ed by the Commerce department as
only semi-necessities. They are cof-
fee, tea, cocoa, camphor, cinchona
bark, cork, opium, cloves and
pepper.
Cataclysmic upheavals would
transform American economic and
social life if imports came to in
clude only the unproducible necessi-
ties or even the semi-necessities
listed by the department. But it
could be done.
Commerce experts have sorted out
not only the products which Ameri-
ca must have, but also those now
being imported which could be pro-
duced domestically under favorable
price conditions, which could be re
placed by American substitutes and
which are partly produced at home
already.
Together these categories, which
embrace only 60 articles in all, are
half Of the skeleton Of American
foreign trade. Altogether their
cost in 1881 did not make up more
than Sc per cent Of what the United
States actually spent on imports.
The other half of the skeleton is
the ten leading American exports,
cotton, petroleum, automobiles and
other vehicles, industrial machinery,
tobacco, fruits and nuts, grains, non
ferrous and nonprecious metals, and
coal and related fuels. They are
the goods bringing the most money,
In the order named, into this coun-
try.
II foreign trade were suddenly
cut to the skeleton, if America
bought only the 60 commodities on
the Commerce department list and
sold only the ten types Of goods
now most largely sold abroad, she
would still have had a $2S6,O00,O0O
favorable balance Of trade on the
basis of 1881 figures.
Economic maturity stealing upon
Uncle Sam Is revealed In the two
lists, the one Of important exports
and the other of vital imports.
America is no longer a young coun-
try pouring out bounteous raw ma
ferials in exchange for manufac-
lures. Two Of the leading exports,
automobiles and industrial machin-
cry, are manufactures.
All Are Raw Materials.
Imports tell the same story. All
Of them are raw materials and most
of them, not being native, would
have to be bought regardless of the
cOuntry's economic age. Others of
the essential imports, however, dis
close the exhaustion or outstripping
of natural resources known as eco
uomic middle age. For instance,
America, the land of lush forests,
must import pulp wood.
None of the six absolutely ire
placeable imports-platinum, tin,
manila, sisal. kapok and rubber
ever have been produced in this
country, however. They play very
small part in Americas actual i'm
port business.
Most costly import on the depart
ment's whole list is sugar. 1t is
classified as a necessity which we
import but which we also produce
in some measure at home.
Silk, a semi-necessity for which
American products could be substi-
tuted, commands the second largest
import business among the articles
listed. China, Japan, and Italy ship
it into this country. Coffee. an ir-
replaceable semi-necessity, is third
In Importance, and newsprint, a ne
cessity produced in part at home. is
fourth.
Taken together these four i'm
ports made up exactly third of the
money spent abroad for imports
during 1881. They composed 50 per
cent of the cost Of goods listed by
the department as necessities and
semi-necessities. After them In i'm
portance comes rubber and wood
pulp. Between these six commodi-
ties and the other necessary and