Toronto (200,000), the capital of the province of Ontario, is the second city of Canada. While Toronto has a great local trade and many important manufactures, it is specially noted as an educational centre. Quebec (80,000) is the oldest city of Canada and one of the oldest upon the continent. Halifax (50,000), the eastern terminus of the Canadian railway system, has one of the finest harbours in the world. Winnipeg (35,000) is destined to be the centre of the great inland trade of Canada.
XIII. THE TRADE FEATURES OF THE UNITED STATES
THE CHARACTER OF OUR EXPORT TRADE
Having reviewed the industrial and trading conditions of the other great commercial nations of the world, it should now remain for us to review these conditions in the United States. But the United States is so large a country, and its trading and industrial interests are so diversified and extensive, that it would be impossible for us in the limits of our space even barely to touch upon all these interests. So that with respect to the "Trade Features of the United States" we shall simply confine ourselves to one part of the subject—namely, the character, extent, and importance of our foreign trade. And we shall, further, have to restrict ourselves in the main to our exports. These will be found to be principally not manufactures, but the products of our great agricultural, mining, and forest industries. The total value of the manufactures of the United States amounts in round numbers to the immense sum of $10,000,000,000 annually, a sum considerably more than a third (it is thirty five per cent.) of the total value of the annual manufactures of the world. But only a very small portion of this vast output is exported. The greater portion of it is used to sustain the still vaster internal trade of our country, a trade which amounts to more than $15,500,000,000 annually, an amount not far short of being one third of the total internal trade of the world, and not far short of being twice the internal trade of Great Britain and Ireland, the country whose internal trade comes next to ours. Our exports, therefore, are not in the main manufactured goods, but breadstuffs, provisions, and raw materials, the production of our farms, our plantations, our forests, and our mines. But principally they are the products of our farms and our plantations, for with the exception of cotton we do not export much raw material. Nearly all the raw material we produce (other than cotton) we use in our own manufactures. And even this is not enough, for in addition we have to import considerable quantities of raw material for our manufactures from other countries, the principal items being raw sugar, raw silk, raw wool, chemicals of various kinds including dye-stuffs, hides and skins, lumber, tin, nickel, and paper stock.
OUR EXPORT TRADE IN DETAIL
Our total exportation for the twelve months ended June 30, 1898, amounted to the unprecedented sum of nearly $1,250,000,000 ($1,231,329,950).[4] This is an amount almost a quarter of a billion dollars greater than ever before, the only years when the export even approximated this amount being 1897 and 1892, when the exportation was slightly over a billion dollars in each case. Of this exportation the sum of $855,000,000, or seventy one per cent. of the whole, was for the products of agriculture, the principal items being (1) "breadstuffs," including wheat and wheat flour, corn and cornmeal, oats and oatmeal, rye and rye flour, $335,000,000; (2) cotton, $231,000,000; (3) "provisions," including beef and tallow, bacon and hams, pork and lard, oleomargarine, and butter and cheese, $166,000,000; (4) animals, including cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs, $47,000,000; (5) raw tobacco, $23,000,000; (6) oil-cake, $12,500,000, and (7) fruits and nuts, $9,000,000. The exports of the products of our mines amounted to only 1.6 per cent. of the total export, or scarcely $20,000,000, the principal items being (1) coal and coke, $12,500,000; (2) crude petroleum, $4,000,000, and (3) copper ore. The exports of the products of the forest amounted to only three per cent. of the total export, or $38,000,000, the principal items being (1) sawed and hewn timber, logs, lumber, shingles, and staves, $28,500,000, and (2) naval stores, including resin, tar, turpentine, and pitch, $9,000,000. The exports of the products of our fisheries amounted to only $4,500,000, or less than one half of one per cent. of the total exports. The exports of the products of our manufactures, according to the official returns, amounted to $289,000,000, or twenty four per cent. of the total export. But this sum included many items which represent raw natural products converted merely into material for subsequent manufacture, as, for example, pig- and bar-iron, planed boards, sole leather, ingot- and bar-copper, cotton-seed oil, and pig- and bar-zinc. The principal items in the true "manufactures" list are (1) machinery, including metal-working machinery, steam-engines and locomotives, electrical machinery, pumping machinery, sewing-machines, typewriting-machines and printing-presses, and railway rails, hardware, and nails, $65,000,000; (2) refined petroleum, $50,000,000; (3) manufactures of cotton, $17,000,000; (4) vegetable oils and essences, $12,000,000; (5) agricultural implements, $7,000,000; (6) cycles, $7,000,000; (7) paper and stationery, $5,500,000; (8) furniture and other manufactures of wood, $5,000,000; (9) tobacco and cigarettes, $5,000,000; (10) fertilisers, $4,500,000; (11) boots and shoes, harness, and rubber shoes, $3,500,000; (12) telegraph, telephone, and other instruments, $3,000,000; (13) bags, cordage, and twine, $2,500,000; (14) books and pamphlets, $2,500,000; (15) sugar, syrup, molasses, candy, and confectionery, $2,000,000; (16) spirits, including brandy and whisky, $2,000,000; and (17) clocks and watches, $2,000,000.
FOOTNOTE:
[4]For the year ending June 30, 1899, the total exportation amounted to $1,204,123,134.
OUR EXPORTS AND THOSE OF GREAT BRITAIN COMPARED
The significance of these figures descriptive of our export trade will be better understood from a few comparisons. Our total exportation for the year 1897-8 was, as said before, in round numbers, $1,250,000,000. For the year previous it was over $1,000,000,000. The exportation of Great Britain for the year 1896 was $1,500,000,000. For the year 1897 it was almost the same amount. For the year 1895 it was $1,450,000,000. But whereas our exportation of breadstuffs, provisions, animals, fruit, etc., and of raw materials, such as cotton, lumber, ores, etc., amounts to probably 77 or 78 per cent. of our total exportation, while our exportation of manufactured goods amounts to not more than 22 or 23 per cent., the exportation of breadstuffs, provisions, raw material, etc., which Great Britain makes is not more than one sixth, or 17 per cent., of her total exportation, while her exportation of manufactured goods is five sixths, or 83 per cent., of her total exportation. For example, Great Britain's export of textiles alone amounts to over $500,000,000 a year (for 1896 $526,647,525), while our total export of textiles, including cottons, woollens, silks, and fibres, is not more than $19,000,000 a year. Great Britain's total export of hardware and machinery amounts to over $250,000,000 a year; our total export of these articles does not amount to more than a third of this sum. On the other hand, Great Britain's total export of raw materials of all sorts is not more than $100,000,000 a year, while ours of cotton alone is almost two and one-third times that sum. And while Great Britain exports no breadstuffs or provisions to speak of, our exportation of these articles (including animals) amounts to the enormous sum of $855,000,000 a year.