116 



COMMERCE (INTERNAL) OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ultimately bear rich fruit, is shown by the fact 

 that the cotton-manufacturing industry to-day 

 is probably in a better condition than in any 

 other country, the 10 million spindles con- 

 suming nearly twice as much cotton each as 

 the 39^ million spindles of Great Britain, as 

 they are kept busier than those of England or 

 the Continent ; and the exports of cotton cloth 

 have increased from less than 18,000,000 yards 

 in 1874 to over 126,000,000 yards in 1878, or 

 from $3,000,000 to nearly $11,500,000, at the 

 same time that the Lancashire product is being 

 slowly dislodged from all its chief foreign mar- 

 kets, of which it has hitherto held the undis- 

 puted monopoly. Comparing the imports and 

 exports of cotton manufactures in 1873 with 

 those of 1878, there is found an increase in the 

 exports from $2,947,528 to $11,435,628, or 

 nearly $8,500,000, and a simultaneous decrease 

 in imports from $29,752,116 to $14,398,791, or 

 over $15,350,000 ; that is, the decline in the 

 net imports within six years has amounted to 

 nearly $24,000,000. Measured by quantities, 

 the change will be found much greater, since 

 the average price of American colored calicoes 

 fell during the same period from 16^ cts. per 

 yard to 7 T 8 o- cts., and of uncolored from 10 T 8 ^ 

 to 7^ cts. per yard. 



In 1850 the exports of agricultural products 

 constituted 90 per cent, of the total exports. 

 During the next ten years, 1851-1860, they 

 made up on the average 78 per cent, of the 

 whole; from 1861 to 1865 they averaged about 

 70 per cent. ; from 1866 to 1870, 73 per cent. ; 

 and in- the last five years, from 1874 to 1878, 

 78| per cent. The figures for the last eleven 

 years are as follows, in round numbers: 



The exports of other than agricultural prod- 

 ucts have not increased in any similar ratio, 

 measured by their values. In 1868 they amount- 

 ed to $135,000,000 ; 1869, $102,000,000 ; 1870, 

 nearly $108,000,000; 1871, $164,500,000; 1872, 

 $142,750,000 ; 1873, $145,000,000 ; 1874 $143,1 

 000,000; 1875, $163,000,000; 1876, $130,500 

 000; 1877, $158,500,000; 1878, $130,500,000. 



The apparent falling off within four or five 

 years is accounted for by the general decline 

 in prices, the aggregate quantities of exports 

 having pretty steadily increased. Were there 

 an actual decrease in the exports of Ameri- 

 can manufactures within the last decade or 

 two, as undoubtedly there has been in certain 

 classes, it would by no means indicate a decline 



in American industry. It is a well-known fact 

 that the extension of manufacturing industries 

 has been more rapid, enterprising, and multi- 

 form of late years than ever before, and that 

 in the stirring times which preceded the late 

 panic the extension of factories and establish- 

 ment of new industries, in which all countries 

 rivaled each other, nowhere took place on so 

 prodigious a scale as in the United States. And 

 nowhere was this enterprise so little wasted as 

 here, because by the more ingenious adaptation 

 of mechanical methods to industry, and by the 

 greater industry of its workmen (two Ameri- 

 can mechanics, it is said, being able to do as 

 much work as three Englishmen), this country 

 was able to hold its own against all rivals ; and 

 still more, because the principal vent which it 

 had to seek for its increased production was in 

 its own home markets. America has always 

 been dependent on Europe for several of the 

 main staples of industrial production, as well 

 as for innumerable special lines of articles 

 which can only be produced in the more com- 

 plex and luxurious communities of Europe. 

 It has been the hope and ambition, the task 

 and the urgent need of America, of late years, 

 to free itself from this commercial dependence. 

 A glance at the list of commodities given be- 

 low, whose importation has declined within six 

 years far beyond any possible diminution in the 

 powers of consumption, will reveal the rapidity 

 with which the displacement of foreign manu- 

 factures, in the great textile and metal indus- 

 tries, is going on in American markets. Every 

 year, even during the present time of compar- 

 ative inaction and despondency, novel indus- 

 tries hitherto practiced only in Europe are in- 

 troduced, oftentimes with improved tools and 

 methods suggested by the famous practical 

 genius of the American. The time is already 

 at hand when the dream and hope of the 

 American for generations will be realized, and 

 the United States will supply its own markets 

 with all the leading manufactures which the 

 country is capable of producing. Whether the 

 causes which have accelerated that event will 

 prove to have been evils or blessings, the future 

 only can reveal ; for there is no doubt that the 

 movement has been greatly hastened not only 

 by the high protective tariff, which works most 

 oppressively on large classes of citizens, but 

 by the enormous debts contracted in Europe, 

 much of which capital was wasted and misap- 

 plied, by the decline of American credit in the 

 money centers of the world, and by the crisis 

 and the epoch of contraction and distress from 

 which business has not yet emerged. Most 

 useful must the lesson of the crisis and its pro- 

 tracted train of distress prove in weaning the 

 mercantile community from traditions which 

 can only be a pernicious delusion in the future. 

 There was a period when high wages, large 

 profits, and dear capital all went hand in hand ; 

 but the America of to-day with its vast ac- 

 cumulated capital, its manifold industries, and 

 its great population, has long outgrown that 



