This table shows that while for last year there was a balance against us of $2,730,277, and the year before of $28,002,607, for all former years from 1887 back to 1874 the balances were in our favor—all the way from $23,000,000 in 1887 to $265,000,000 in 1881. But the total want of significance so far as the movement of gold is concerned attaching to any figures showing a balance of trade against the United States will be seen by an analysis of the figures for any one year. Let us take for example the imports and exports for 1889 and analyze them by countries.
I now present a table in which I place in one group the gold-using countries, and in another the silver and paper-using countries.
Exports and imports of the United States to and from the various gold-using and silver-using or paper-using countries of the world for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1889.
| Countries. | Exports. | Imports. |
|---|---|---|
| Gold-using countries: | ||
| Canada | $42,141,156 | $43,009,473 |
| Belgium | 23,345,219 | 9,816,435 |
| Denmark | 3,903,937 | 846,904 |
| France | 46,120,041 | 69,566,618 |
| Germany | 68,002,594 | 81,742,546 |
| Great Britain | 382,981,674 | 178,269,067 |
| Greece | 165,079 | 988,923 |
| Italy | 12,604,848 | 17,992,149 |
| Netherlands | 15,062,939 | 10,950,843 |
| Portugal and its possessions | 3,266,814 | 1,282,556 |
| Spain | 11,946,348 | 4,636,661 |
| Sweden and Norway | 2,615,569 | 2,983,319 |
| Turkey | — | 4,687,731 |
| British possessions in Africa | 2,936,213 | 895,344 |
| British possessions in Australia | 12,321,980 | 5,998,211 |
| Silver and paper using countries: | ||
| Austria-Hungary | 726,156 | 7,642,297 |
| Russia | 8,364,545 | 2,985,631 |
| Mexico | 11,486,896 | 21,253,601 |
| Central America | 4,325,923 | 8,414,019 |
| Hawaii | 3,375,661 | 12,847,740 |
| Argentine Republic | 9,293,856 | 5,454,618 |
| Brazil | 9,351,081 | 60,403,804 |
| Chili | 2,972,794 | 2,622,625 |
| Peru | 780,835 | 314,032 |
| Colombia | 3,821,017 | 4,263,519 |
| Uruguay | 2,192,848 | 2,986,964 |
| Venezuela | 3,738,961 | 10,392,569 |
| Cuba | 11,691,311 | 52,130,623 |
| Hayti | 5,340,270 | 5,211,704 |
| Porto Rico | 2,224,931 | 3,707,373 |
| British West Indies | 10,453,973 | 20,723,268 |
| Dutch West Indies | 887,778 | 654,320 |
| China | 6,477,512 | 18,508,678 |
| India, British | 4,330,413 | 20,029,601 |
| India, Dutch | 2,249,604 | 5,207,254 |
| Japan | 4,619,985 | 16,687,992 |
By this table it is seen that the only gold-using countries having a balance of trade against us are Canada, $868,317; France, $23,446,577; Greece, $823,824; Germany, $13,739,952; Italy, $5,387,301; Sweden and Norway, $367,850; Turkey, $4,687,731—making a total balance against us in gold-using countries, $49,321,452—against which we have a balance in our favor with Great Britain alone of over $200,000,000.
The balance against us in favor of all the silver using countries could of course be readily settled in silver; and by carefully noting the figures of the table last given it will be seen that it is in the last degree improbable that there will ever be a balance of trade against us in the gold using countries, taken as a whole.
Hence it is clear that if we had no gold at all we could readily settle all foreign balances that might be against us.
Nations, however, ultimately, and on the whole, square their accounts with commodities. Every nation must buy what it wants with its own products. In this country especially have we nothing to fear, because any temporary balance against us could always be met by the yield from our own mines. No country has any difficulty by reason of my difference in money systems in buying what any other nation has to sell.
This view is supported by all writers on political economy. I need quote but one. Professor Cairnes, professor of political economy in the University College of London, in his able work on "Some unsettled questions in political economy" (1874), says:
It appears to me that the influence attributed by many able writers in the United States to the depreciation of the paper currency as regards its effects on the foreign trade of the country is, in a great degree, purely imaginary. An advance in the scale of prices, measured in gold, in a country, if not shared by other countries, will at once affect its foreign trade, giving an impulse to importations and checking the exportation of all commodities other than gold. A similar effect is very generally attributed by American writers to the action on prices of the greenback inconvertible currency.