709. Importance of the English trade.—England still headed the list of the countries with which we traded. Our imports from the United Kingdom in 1913 formed 16 per cent of our total import trade, exceeding, therefore, our imports from the whole continent of Asia or from the continents of South America, Oceania and Africa together; while our exports to the United Kingdom formed nearly one quarter (24 per cent) of the total exports, and exceeded the aggregate of our exports to all four continents named above. The country which stood next in importance in our commercial relations in 1913 was another English-speaking country, our Canadian neighbor, and the value of our commerce with these two members of the British Empire was almost exactly one-third of the total value of our foreign trade.
710. Trade with other countries: Europe.—The relative importance of other countries in their commercial relations with the United States can be seen in the following list, which gives the share each took in our total commerce in merchandise in 1913: United Kingdom, 21 per cent; Canada, 13; Germany, 12; France, 7; Cuba, 5; Netherland, Brazil and Japan, 4 each; Mexico, British East India, Italy and Belgium, 3 each. An extension of this list would confuse rather than aid the student. If we divide the twelve countries named into groups of four we find that the first group, four countries, accounted for more than one half of our total commerce; the first two groups, eight countries, accounted for more than two-thirds; the whole twelve together accounted for more than three-quarters.
Among the European states we note that France had not kept her place of relative importance; commerce with that country had grown but slowly, and Germany had won precedence among our customers in Continental Europe by her high industrial development and her growing demand for our raw materials. Reviewing the other states of Europe the reader will note the absence from the list of the great empires of Russia and Austria-Hungary, and the presence of such little states as the Netherlands and Belgium. Area and population are obviously factors which have no decisive influence on the commercial importance of a country.
711. The Americas and Asia.—Attention has already been directed to the fact that although the major part of our commercial interests still lay in Europe the concentration of our interests there had grown gradually less with the passage of time. The reader will note the evidence of this tendency to dispersion in the fact that of the twelve countries named as the most important in their commercial relations with the United States in 1913, six were extra-European. Two of these were our immediate neighbors in North America; exchange with these countries became more active as the United States took on the character of an industrial state, offering finished products for the raw materials of industry. The other two American states on the list owed the importance of their position in our trade largely to their ability to meet special demands of the American consumer, for sugar and for coffee respectively. These and other states to the south of us made relatively small purchases in the American market. Our relations with British East India were of the same kind; that group of countries bought from us in 1913 less than one tenth of the value of the products (coarse textile fibers, burlap, skins, etc.) which it sold to the American importer. A tendency similar but less marked showed itself in the trade with Japan which supplied 5 per cent of the total American imports, but took less than 3 per cent of our exports. Noteworthy is the absence from the list of China, numbering over three hundred million inhabitants, but accounting for less than 2 per cent of the trade of the United States in 1913.
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS
1. Chart the figures, sect. 695, and note the changes in the relative as well as the absolute importance of different classes of imports.
2. Contrast the import trade of the United States in 1913 with that of England or of Germany. Study the indications of trade between the U. S. and other countries given by these comparisons.
3. The decline in import of manufactured wares implied either that the country was growing poorer, and so was unable to buy finished products abroad, or else was growing more competent to supply its own needs. Which is the correct view?
4. What food supplies, used in the household in which you live, come from foreign countries?