Media, Kan.
What effect does the present system of tariff have upon American commercial and industrial interests of the United States? How do the commerce and industrial products of the United States compare with those of other countries?
J. H. Vick.
Answer.—There are several articles on the tariff in Our Curiosity Shop for 1880, to which we must refer you; particularly one on page 149, entitled “The Tariff and the Farmers.” According to high statistical authority the commerce and principal industries of this country, Great Britain, France, and Germany in 1880 compared as follows:
| Countries— | Commerce. | Manufactures. |
| United States | $1,505,000,000 | $4,440,000,000 |
| Great Britain | 3,460,000,000 | 3,790,000,000 |
| France | 1,660,000,000 | 2,425,000,000 |
| Germany | 1,920,000,000 | 2,135,000,000 |
The commerce above referred to is mainly foreign commerce. In the case of Great Britain, what corresponds to our inter-State commerce (the trade between the different portions of the one extended government) is included under the head of “Commerce,” swelling the aggregate largely, whereas but a small portion of the interstate commerce of the United States is included in the above estimate of our “Commerce.” Our fifty million people buy and sell among themselves to supply each other’s wants, and consume a much larger proportion of their domestic products per capita for their own comfort than do the English, French, or Germans. The effects of the tariff in building up American manufactures are shown in the above table, and in the table below are indicated some of the effects on mining, agriculture, and the carrying trade:
| Carrying | |||
| Countries— | Mining. | Agriculture. | Trade. |
| United States | $360,000,000 | $3,000,000,000 | $830,000,000 |
| Great Britain | 325,000,000 | 1,200,000,000 | 805,000,000 |
| France | 60,000,000 | 2,000,000,000 | 810,000,000 |
| Germany | 105,090,000 | 1,700,000,000 | 845,000,000 |
Comparatively few of our manufactures are exported, because our agriculture, mining, manufacturing, commercial, and professional classes consume them at home. So, too, the products of our mines are mostly kept at home, and four-fifths of our agricultural products. If our foreign carrying trade is not so large as Great Britain’s, our coasting and other domestic carrying trade exceeds hers. By division of labor we are creating a world of our own, setting up our own standards of wages, and modes of living, and are, as a consequence, living better, enjoying more of the comforts of life, man for man, than any other people under the sun.
THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES.