Less Foreign Demand for Products. 47 



to buy and use an article when it is low in price. It would 

 seem that this rule would be particularly applicable with 

 foreigners, the rate of whose wages is much below our 

 own. 



If to what has gone before is added the strong prob- 

 ability that the low jDrices and abundance of American 

 products to a considerable extent displaced in the Euro- 

 pean markets the exports of other nations, and very likely 

 even of European farmers, it would seem that ample 

 explanation had been made for the large increase in our 

 agricultural exports in recent years. Back in 1890 Mr. 

 McKinlev said, when the tariff that bears his name was 

 under discussion : ' ' The depression of agriculture is not 

 confined to the United States. The reports of the Agri- 

 cultural Department indicate that this distress is general, 

 that Great Britain, France and G-ermany are suffering 

 in a greater degree than the farmer of the United States." 

 This distress was partly due to full crops in Europe, but 

 more, we think, to the low level of American prices, which 

 even then were below those of the "pauper labor of 

 Europe." But most of our exports were at still lower 

 figures in 1898-1901. 



This is the way the record stands : with low duties a 

 gain in agricultural exports of 138% in eleven years; 

 this, too, when the vast West had but just begun to con- 

 tribute to the result. Under high duties, after retaliatory 

 tariffs got in their destructive work the gain in five-year 

 periods from 1878-1882 to 1899-1903, twenty-two years, 

 twice the former time, was 38%, at the very time when 

 the great volume of western products was rapidly in- 

 creasing, and the cost of transportation had been greatly 

 reduced. 



In closing, the following table not only indicates where 



