Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1877 — Our Foreign Trade. [ARTICLE]

Our Foreign Trade.

In the midst of the general stagnation of business, it is encouraging to notice that some branches of American commerce, and in particular of American manufactures, are enlarging the field of their demand, building up trade in foreign parts, and successfully competing with the products of other countries. The growth of our export trade is beginning to receive the attention of which it is worthy. Within the past year organized movements have taken place on the part of several trades to secure a worldwide sale of their goods. An association of industries for the promotion of commerce has been formed, and there lias been a wide and general discussion with regard to our commercial relations with other countries. In round numbers the exports of 1876 amounted to $652,376,000, which is $130,000,000 more than during the year before the panic. Our exports of mowers, plows and other agricultural implements, cotton goods, leather, munitions of war, etc., amounted to $58,993,630, which is the largest annual exportation of American manufactures that has ever occurred. The statistics of our foreign trade show that aside from our shipments of food, which constitute five-sixths of our exports, we are exporting less raw material to be manufactured abroad, while our exports of manufactured goods are increasing. The ingenuity of American inventors and our universal use of machinery enable us to send a great variety of goods to foreign markets, and in many instances to offer a cheaper, better and more useful article than is manufactured in other countries. —New York Cor. Chicago Times.