364 BANQUET. 



any credit for manufactured foodstuffs, our manufactured exports comprise the major por- 

 tion of this branch of our trade. 



Turning now to imports, in 1850, 70 per cent by value was manufactured material ; less 

 than 10 per cent was raw material; partly manufactured material about 15 per cent; and the 

 balance manufactured foodstuffs. The partly manufactured materials and foodstuffs have 

 maintained a curiously. constant percentage, while raw materials have steadily risen, and totally 

 manufactured material has nearly steadily decreased, until in 1920 the percentage by value 

 of importations of raw material has risen to 40, while totally manufactured material has de- 

 creased to 30 per cent. This represents an increase of nearly 500 per cent in the percentage 

 of importation of raw material and a decrease in the percentage of totally manufactured ma- 

 terial of over 100 per cent; as startling a change in three and one-half generations as can 

 be fo'und in the history of the world. 



America today, with unparalleled resources, is dependent for its growth and progress on 

 importation of raw materials necessary to supplement its own vast stores. 



Of our raw-material exports in 1920, bituminous coal ranks first; then grain, crude oil, 

 cotton, phosphate rock, and lumber. Of the nineteen million tons of coal exported, ten mil- 

 lion went to Europe, a market largely closed to us today. Of the balance of these raw com- 

 modities, some twelve million tons of exports, a large part was grain produced in this country 

 because of the failure of the Russian supply. On the other hand, our greatest single import 

 is crude petroleum from Mexican fields, which in 1920 amounted to no less than sixteen mil- 

 lion tons. Next to oil comes sugar, of which nearly four million tons, mostly from Cuba, was 

 imported in 1920. Then come iron ore, nitrates, potash, and potassium salts ; then bananas, 

 of which no less than eight hundred thousand tons were imported in 1920; then coffee, copper 

 ores, sissal, jute, and kapok. 



Our exports of manufactured articles are nearly as varied as our industries, with refined 

 petroleum at the head of the list by tonnage, then manufactured steel, dairy products, flour, 

 machinery of all kinds from automobiles to phonographs. 



Our export of cotton for twenty years has remained practically stationary, the actual in- 

 crease of output being absorbed in American mills. In 1920, no less than eight hundred and 

 fifty million yards of cloth were exported. Today we consume more cotton than we export, 

 and import 10 per cent of our consumption from Egypt to make good our own immediate 

 insufficient supply of long staple cotton. 



The shoemaki ng industry affords an interesting example of the changes going on around 

 us. In 1920, nineteen million pairs of shoes were exported. This business was founded on 

 our supply of cheap and excellent hides. Today the bulk of our hides comes from Argentine ; 

 while the exhaustion of our local supply of oak bark necessitates the importation of quebracho 

 also from Argentine, so that much of the foot-gear of Argentine travels in the form of raw 

 materials some seven thousand miles to our tanneries and factories and back again to the 

 feet of the ultimate consumer. 



Our imports of manufactured material cover a wide variety, principally of specialties; 

 German and Japanese toys, coal-tar dyes, optical glasses, special silks, Irish linens and Eng- 

 lish worsteds. These rank high in value because of their character, but low in tonnage. 



Geographically, the United States may be di-\nded into the raw material and foodstuff 

 exporting localities covered by the Central, the Gulf and the Pacific sections, and the manu- 

 factured-article exporting district, the North Atlantic district, which may be roughly consid- 

 ered as including the territory east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River; together 



