124 



COMMERCE (INTERNAL) OF THE UNITED STATES. 



movement began, will have a tendency to grav- 

 itate still lower, while improvement in quality, 

 which from natural causes must be very slow, 

 can not be accelerated by the competition in 

 cheapness, unless it is attempted to imitate the 

 higher-priced foreign makes of cheese; the 

 tendency to conform to the taste of the Euro- 

 pean consumers is already observable in the 

 cheese now sent to market. The export price 

 must henceforward rule in the market for dairy 

 products, as it does for cotton, cereals, and the 

 other chief exports. The price for choice but- 

 ter ranged in New York from 25 to 28 cts. per 

 pound in the spring and summer of 1877, ad- 

 vanced to from 33 to 40 cts. in the winter, and 

 was between 25 and 35 cts. in the spring of 1878. 

 The exports from that port from May 1, 1877, 

 to the same date in 1878, were 27,500,000 Ibs. 

 Oleomargarine has affected the price and inter- 

 fered with the sale of all the lower grades of 

 butter within the past year or two. When this 

 oil is churned with sour milk, and a quantity 

 of cream or butter is added to it, it has a very 

 close resemblance to -genuine butter. The pro- 

 vision merchants of New York and elsewhere 

 .organized the vigorous prosecution of all deal- 

 ers who sold the article without complying 

 with the laws which require it to be ticketed 

 with its name. As much as'25,000 Ibs. of this 

 artificial butter have been sold in some single 

 weeks from the New York factories, and over 

 5,000,000 Ibs. of it were exported in 1877. 



The manufacture of cotton, like that of iron 

 products, has within the past decade passed 

 through an epoch of excessive acceleration and 

 extension in all lands, and, like it, is now suf- 

 fering the effects of too great an accession of, 

 capital and enterprise. The congestion and 

 stoppage succeeding the over-stimulation of 

 these two mighty industries all over the world, 

 and the accompanying derangement of the 

 functions of economical production, are one 

 of the chief causes of the general prostration 

 of trade through which the world is now pass- 

 ing. Each nation, encouraged chiefly by a gen- 

 eral inflation of prices consequent upon an un- 

 usual abundance of money of different kinds, 

 hastened simultaneously to establish its indus- 

 try, and above all the great textile and metal 

 trades, on an independent basis. No country 

 took a more vigorous part in this struggle than 

 the United States, and none is likely to emerge 

 from it more unscathed and more victorious. 

 In the accessibility of raw materials and in the 

 abundance and cheapness of food it was strong- 

 er than its rivals, and with methods of mechan- 

 ical production it was better armed ; its pro- 

 tective tariff, the unusual home demand for 

 railroad iron, and the long-fostered patriotic re- 

 solve to furnish its own supply of cotton manu- 

 factures, whose accomplishment was aided, un- 

 der the protection of the high tariff, both by 

 the original high range of prices and even by 

 the extensive fall in prices and the depression 

 of general trade in so far as it occasioned the 

 substitution of native cotton goods for dearer 



foreign fabrics these and various other cir- 

 cumstances combined to place America on a 

 ground of vantage in the desperate internation- 

 al conflict which has raged most fiercely in the 

 field of the cotton and iron trades. The cotton 

 industry of the world must for some time to 

 come suffer from the sharp competition and 

 slow trade resulting from the excessive exten- 

 sion of manufacturing facilities. This exten- 

 sion has been over 50 per cent, within thirteen 

 years, the spinning capacity of the world hav- 

 ing increased from about 2,000,000,000 Ibs., 

 equal to 5,000,000 bales of 400 Ibs. each, in 1865 

 to over 3,000,000,000 Ibs. in 1878, as is shown 

 by the following table, giving the number of 

 spindles and their consuming capacity in the 

 different parts of the world, according to the 

 latest reports : 



Consuming Power of the World in 1877-"78. 



This sharp international competition has been 

 detrimental to the foreign trade of England 

 in cotton manufactures, which is fast losing 

 ground year by year on the Continent and in 

 India as well as in the United States. Of the 

 total consumption of raw cotton in 1877-'78, 

 which aggregated 7,343,000 bales, England 

 took 40'6 per cent., the Continent 33*7 per 

 cent., the United States 22'6 per cent., India 

 3'1 per cent. ; of the total consumption in the 

 year 1870-'71, 6,246,000 bales, Great Britain's 

 share was 47'9 per cent., that of the Continent 

 31-4 per cent., of the United States 19-3 per 

 cent., of India T4 per cent. ; in 1860 the Eng- 

 lish mills manufactured 49 -4 per cent, of the 

 world's total takings, the Continental mills 

 31-5 per cent., the United States 19*1 per cent., 

 and India none. The English exports of cot- 

 tons to the United States, which were 226,- 

 000,000 yards in 1860, were only 47,000,000 

 yards in 1877-'78, little more than one third 

 of the exports of the United States the same 

 year. The export of American cottons has 

 increased with remarkable rapidity of late 

 years, as the following statement of exports 

 for the last five fiscal years will show : 



The cotton crop of tie United States in 

 1877-'78 was the largest ever grown, save that 



