Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1885 — MEXICAN RECIPROCITY TREATY. [ARTICLE]

MEXICAN RECIPROCITY TREATY.

SPEECH OF HOK- THOMAS J. WOOD, OF INDIANA. •In the House of Represntatives. Friday, February 13,1885. Mr. tVooDsaid: Mr. Speaker: Legislation is proposed in this House to carry iiito effect the terms of the Mexican treaty. This treaty admits free of duty to our markets twenty-eight articles, all of which come in free under our tariff act excepting seven, and the treaty removes the tariff from these also Mexico agrees to receive free of duty seven tv-three articles from the United States, of which sixty-seven are now subject to pay an average Mexican duty of 80 per cent, of the appraised value. I regret that farm products of the United States are excluded, but it is worthy of our support for opening a new and extensive market for our machinery and manufactured goods. Should this treaty prove t j be mutually beneficial to both countries, as i believe it will, it will be enlarged by another, to admit free of duties our agricultural products.

The producers of food and manufactured goods in the United States want to trade with the people of Mexico, as the volume of existing trade shows, though it is hampered by high duties in the revenue laws of both countries. Mexico is oui neighbor and onlydivided fromithe Unitea States by a surveyor’s line.— She is bound to this country now by a complete railway system which promises a revolution in trade and business throughout her domain. The commercial advancement of this country, created by our capital and railway system, belongs to us. Shall the expanded trade of Mexico, thro’ a railway system connecting her capital with the city of New York, go to other coun* tries? The capitalists of the United States are developing this country, developing its trade; and shall other countries receive its advantages?— If we do not command it other countries will, and our people will regret the loss of increased trade through their own worn of development. What! Our capital invested, a railway built to the capital city of another country for the only purpose of increasing trade and commerce, and we refuse that trade and commerce by unfriendly laws on our statute books? Developing Mexico with our railroad system and by our capital for the benefit of foreign countries! This House will not do that by refusing to pass this bill. The trade of Mexico is not bound to any foreign country, and the Mexican people are willing to trade with us.— What is the advantage of their trade? Mexico has a territory comprising 1,224,996 square miles and a population of 1",-

000,000 of people, and is therefore a country capable of a large and increasing trade with the United States. Her vast mineral wealth awaits development Hear me while I review the tangible wealth of this republic, the greater part of which has gone and is going to other countries. The annual coinage of gold, silver, and copper averages $20,5”0,000 The whole amount of coinage since the establishment of the mints up to 1875 was $3,001,237,281.62. in the colonial period from 1537 to 1821 the amount of silver coined was ' 2,082,26'>,657.44; gold, $68,778,41J; copper, $542,883.37; making a total of $2,151,581,961.81. Since the establishment of the republic, 1822 to 1875, silver

! coined, c 797,1)56,080.71; gq 1 d,! i *47.427,383.11; copper, 5,273,855. ' i 63—a total of *849,655,319.84;—, j Total silver coined, , 738.21; total gold coinage, $116,- ■ 105,794.11; total copper coinage, $5,815,740.3''. Grand total coinage, *3,001,237,281.62. >n the last five years foreign capital has been invested in the mines, and the average estimate is twenty-one and a half millions per year, which would make *102,500,000 more, making the sum total up to the year 1880 of $3,103,737,28!.62. It must be remembered that this immense rtietallic wealth came from the Crudest process of mining and is the product of only a few ot the valuable mines in this country. The best mines are not remjii nerative under the system of mining- bu z >lfrapid advancement is being made in reaching and reducing the valuable ores. Our successful mining system introduced there will develop fabulous wealth in the unexplored mines of Mexico. What other country on the globe can show suc li a precious metallic rec ord? Where has this vast ain’t

of coined gold, silver and cooper gone? tis not in Mexico. If this coined wealth was in Mexico to-day it would give over S3OO per capita for every man, woman and child. The masses of the people are poor, but the nobility are rich. — This gre.it wealth grasped by the nobility caused vice, idleness and usurpation, until that great country was many times torn and despoiled by the ravages of merciless armies and hordes of banditti, ft was the turbulent spirit of the rich nobility, always struggling to rule the Government, an 1 not the want of ample wealth, tlud has kept back Mexico to the rear of civilized progress and enlightenment. Where is this fabulous wealth? Other nations have it. For one hundred years the old countries of the East have carried away her gold and silver, given for the products of their laboring people sold in her markets.— The United States has been a century witnessing this cash market go into other hands when she might ha v long ago called i t her own. w ill she refuse it now when it is within her grasp?

During years past the trade of foreign countries with Mex ico was nearly a cash transaction with the latter, as you will see by the Mexican export of precious metals. During the fiscal year of 1882 and ’B3 Mexico exported nearly $30,000,0 0 of gold and silver coin and bullion, while her whole export trade for the same year was about $41,00",000. Here was about $11,000,000 of exchange of products and $30,000.000 of pi ecious metals paid and exported. You may examine the statistics of the Mexican export trade for many years oast and you will find that this is the pioportional average. Of this $41,000,00 ( > of export the United States received only about $8,507’00, while $32,500,00' went to England, France, Germany and other countries. What was this enormous sum of precious metals given for? For the

same articles that this country is able to transport there and sell. If the history of trade in this country in the past is any guide for the future, our agricultural products,tie products of our mills and factories will Hud in Mexico a willing market and coin payment. ' | A cash market for our products is the best in the world. Our whole country would soon feel a new life in every trade and business from the steady influx of the precious metals of IM exico, given for the products ot our labor, capital, and skill. But what is the future of this undeveloped countrj of which we will pa rtake if we pass this bill? The States of Zacatecas, Sonora, Chihuahua,

San Luis Potosi, Hidalgo, Mex ico, and Michoacan contain within their mountain ranges veins of gold and silver in inexhaustible riches. These and other states contain also metals and mineral substances, such as copper, iron, zinc, lead, magistral, antimony, arsenic, cobalt, amianthus, and copperas in inexhaustible quantities, not mined at all. Carbonate of soda in unlimited supply is found on the lands around LakeTezcoco. The-w-hite and colored marble quarries attract the capital of Europe. The alabaster of Tecale in the state ot Puebla, with the platina and quicksilver mines, will add to accum - ulating wealth in the course of development. Then there is the full supply of the spices and all the fruits of the trouics of large commercial value.— What was our trade with Mexico before the Mexican ■ entral Railroad was built, built by the expenditure of sixty millions of money, mostly advanced and controlled by our own citizens? In 1880, before the Mexican Central was built, we exported to Mexico $7,866,493 and im - ported from Mexico $7,209,593. We sold a little more than we

bought t In 1883, when this line of railroad was not completed, out in operation for a longdistance in Mexican territory, we imported from Mexico $8,177,123, and exported to that coun try $16,587,620. We sold more than double the amount we bought. We therefore bro’t into this country over $8,000.0 0 of coin cash for our pro ducts. Since this line of rail way has been completed to the City of Mexico and connected with our great network of railroads from east to west and north to south, 1 understand that the trade has more than doubled, though it is too early for the printed statistical report: yet who can doubt that our trade with this country is now in its infancy'? This treaty, if adopted, will give it a great stimulus and create a friendly confidence between the people and tradesmen of the two republics, and thereby her presentirade and increased commerce in the future will be turned into our hands. What will we lose by fully adopting this treaty?— The loss of revenue by admitting the seven additional articles free of duty only amount to $88,658.59. We can well afford this loss. The sugarplanter of Louisiana objects. He has no cause for alarm. — During the last fiscal year the import of sugar from Mexico was only 1,792,171 pounds, valued at '63,419. This limited import of sugar can not be considered competition with the home product. At the present time Mexico is not a sugar producing country. She does not producefeugar enough for home consumption. If this was a great sugaruroduemg country, would not he fact have been known to the ready capitalists of Europe long before this decade, and would they not have willingly developed sugar production there as they have done in

Cuba, Porto Rico, and all the Spanish Antilles? The fact that the Mexican people are short of sugar supply argues well against great sugar production in Mexico. I would rather believe that with the increased trade whichjthe trea< ty will give, our own sugar pro ducers will find a market in | Mexico. Whet v. 'll .ve sell to the Me ,n people if this treaty is adopted? Chiefly our manufactured goods and machinery. Tools required for mining, wagons, carts, and carriages, railway coaches and railway equipments, clocks, pumps, and steam engines, locomotives, iron and steel railway bars, iron beams, machinery and apparatus of all kinds .for industrial, agricultural,

nd mining purposes, plows nd plowshares, crude and rein’d petroleum, powder,stoves, telegraph and barbed ence-wire, all kinds of water- . does, and many ot er articles. I regard this treaty as the beginning of a great trade nd we should accept it as a ’ >eginning, fullv believing that >oth the contracting parties vill soon hereafter demand a tew and enlarged treaty, admitting free the products of he farm. I favor commercial treaties vith all the South American tates because their trade leitimateJy belongs to us and mrs to them, as an American ndowment; and this treaty, f successful, will be followed >y others that will give us a dde trade with them. The ejection of this bill, in my udgment, would be tantamount to a declaration that ve do not want any, of the rade of other countries. It 7ould be, in substance, an orLer to foreign tradesmen to tay away from our comm erial centers and keep off of >ur business thoroughfares, nd the cherished policy of wo-thirds of the American >eople, of wider markets for he products of the farm, mills, ooms, and furnaces would reel ve a wounding thrust in the ery house of its declared riends. I will not refuse a treaty be •ause it excludes some of our surplus products and admits >thers. I would like all to be idmitted; but if 1 can not sell igricultural products and can -ell the products of our manifactories I would sell them, md vice versa. That would eem to be friendship and generosity to every industry in his country, which l would, vith open hands, build up for he general good of the commonwealth. Amicable trade relations with other countries is necessary; sooner or later we must seek the markets of other ountries. The country to day s burdened with overproduction. It demands relief by an intrammeled outlet to other markets

In nearly every department )f industry in this country there is greater production than consumption. It is a plethoric condition of business that rarely exists in any country. It demonstrates the fertility of our lands, the industry and economy of our people. it demonstrates th’e wealth of our mines and the climatic conditions essential to full and complete production. .It demonstrates to the world our abundance of capital, capability and energy of oui business men, who were willing to venture in the development of our natural resources, which have no equal in any other country. Endowed with richer resources than any other land on the globe why will we cease to produce more than we can consume? Why will we not sell our surplus bread and provisions to the millions barely subsisting to-day? Why wi Iwe not sell the surplus products of our looms, mills and furnaces in all countries having no manufactories? This people can not stop production now. They are too far into the business to back out, and they will go on. What are our agencies of production? During the last several years there-has been a large import of producing laborers, who /have located upon the rich lands of the great West, tilled the soil with care, and it yielded an immense surplus of the staple cereals. The young farmers every year leaving the homestead to open new farms, raise more than they consume. Inventive genius has in the last quarter of a century bro’t into use labor-saving machin ■?ry in a thousand forms, facil itatingand rapidly advancing the work of agriculture. The handiwork of the inventor in the cotton and woolen mills, in

he iron and steel industries, In the refineries, and other kind* of manufacture has • aused a revoulion in the ra pidity or all manufactured Droducha. All these, operat ing upon nature’s rich and onvenient resources, have iyen this plethoric condition, and I tell jou it is likely to'

continue, for this country is not go* Ing backward and it can not stand stiH. The cultivated farms will net cease to grow the golden grain; new farms will be added by the American boys, and the emigration of farmers from the old countries will not cease Cap-» ital is always restless and best Serves its master when in ceaseles activity, and it will turn the wheels of every manufacturing industry though it may be idle for a season. Tne great manufacturing plants of America can not long remain idle. The millions invested tn them will uot bo permit ed to rot and rust How will you stop this plethoric growth? Not, I trust, by telling man to quit work: not by stopping the plow, the reaping and threshing machines; not by closing down the mills and the factories.That would be business suicide. Will you order labor to cease, improvements to suspend, business to decline until the natural growth of the country comes up to the level of consuming its own productions? If so, how long must we wait? The prednetive capacity of the farms and the nianufa taring industries are far ahead of the consumptive power of the country. .What is the remedy? It is wider markets.— Sell everywhere. Make treaties advantageous treaties, and sell. Sell our machinery and manufactured goods in one country and the products of the farm in others, if necessary. Go out .to the world. Challenge En lan I in all her ways over the sea. Th sea is for America as much as it ■< for Englund If any law on the tatute book forbids this market so 'be surplus produ -ts <>f our labor, epeal die law or amend it to aid present conditions ather than preserve it to hamper the best energies of the country Remove trade restrictions, and invite ra l her than repel the trade of nations. Send away tne surplus to other markets and let the farmer’s plow turn the soil, let the reaper do th a utmost in gatheringthe haivest. Let the thoroughfares of trade bo crowded in the movement of cereal surplus. Letthe wheels of industry turn and send the manti factured products to countries where manufacturing is scarcely known and the end of stagnation in trade and plethora of business will ootae.

A fair commercial treaty between this country and the South American S ates would be the next movement of the treaty making power, in ease the pending treaty is conflrtnecl. Our country should acquire the major 1 arc of the South American trade on equitable terms What is the extent of this trade which other nations, more shrewd than our own continually oovet? Take the trade of Brazil, for example. Her trad.- with the United States, England and France aggregates about $1 ,0,000,000, of which the United States .ke $50,266,000. The United States . reives nearly onesnaif of the Brux lian export trade, yet Brazil recei a from the United States only sß.i : .>s-000, white England sends to Brazil goods valm-d at UGU, a d buys Brazilian products to the amoun. of $29,835-000. France sells in Brazil $15,657,00(1 and|takes fromj Brazil $29,216 000. Here la the fact, tnat our imp >rts from Brazil are nearly one-half or the total export of that country, and we sell there about one-ninth of the whole yalue of goods sent into that country. No country can prosper by such unequal commerce as our country has Jwith Brazil. We buy of Brazil over $<"0,000,000 and Brazil buys about eight and a half millions from us. Thisjtrade could be equalized bv a commercial treaty. The other South American states would follow the example of Brazil, and soon we would be master of the South American trade. The old counrries of the east—England, Francs, and Germany—do not per mlt a plethoric condition of trade -commodities at home. They load their merchant-ships and order them out to sea. It has just b( <-n officially annouu • ced that Germany has concluded a commercial treaty with/the Transvaal Republic. England was a competitor in this treaty, but Germany outdone her. I want fair treaties, not omgiving a foreign country advantages over us as the Spanish-American treaty does. By that treaty the United States takes about sixty millions of dollars’ worth of the sugar and tobacco products of Cuba and the Antilles, while our trade with them can not exceed fifteen millions; and our loss of revenue would amount to nearly forty millions, and our People would not get free sugar at all. Under this treaty free sugar coming into our ports would not ruie the price of sugar, bir the irn«* parted sugars from other countries paying (he duties would rule the price. Our Treasury would lose a laige revenue, and the consumers of sugdi' would get no advantage in a i lower mice of that article. I would not make sugar fiee. that step would be such a sacrifice of revenue tnat very little, if any, tax reduction could be made on other high tariff articles necessary to the comforts of life. I object to the repeal of the tariff on any one or a number of articles unless it be salt Coal, and lumber. The reduction should be general ;honghout ■ the list on the basis of true reform of the I customs laws. To make sugar free ! is to continue the high tax on wool* en, cotton, and iron and steel goods. I would treat all the inlustries alike.

It is said We have no merchant marine. I lament our weakness here, but if we encourage the trade of nation*, soon America will have a grand merchant marine that will be a. competitor of England and otirt.-’ countries. Every ot er civilized country sends away its surplus to ! other nations for barter and sale and thereby keep their work'ngmen i employed all through the year. “England sails her surplus wherever I

•he can, so does Germany, so does France. Even Mexico and Brazil are doing the same thing. Tl is country does not. She lags bck in in the wake of commercia progress with the world. Objection is tm de to this treaty because it abrogates the revenue laws. 1 do not waut free trade. We must have a tariff, she question is, Shall it be a bigtariff for tne purpose of protection, or a tariff for the purpose of revenue? How high shall the tariff be? I say ir should be high enough to bring to the public Treasury sufficient revenue. That is a pretty "high tariff. Our G ▼ >rment requires about $200,000,000 of re enue from the tariff. That requires a pr.tty high duty, and while it raises enough revenue it gives $200,000,000 protection to-tiome industries. Is that not enough protection? A revenue tariff is protection to the extent of the duty fixed. I would uot favor any treaty that would materially interere with there venue' bads.

Our country, acting upon the principle of national comity, should make a friendly power in Mexico, in whose territory there would be no enemy or neutral ground in the time of possible conflict between it and the strong nations of the east ever ready for war. The Monroe doctrines, adhered to by the United States- and the restless dissatisfaction withjthe Clayton Bulwer treaty are going to precipitate a crisis at no distant day, and a ciash of arms for mastery. In that time it is well for us if no foreign alliance be formed with Mexico. My friends, be not flattered into insensibilty as to this coming issue by our power and prestige. It is coming; I tell you ir is coming, and I beg you not to be idle in making complete defense on land and sea. Again shall we refuse this treaty and arrest our commanding power over c mtiguons'territory, which will resuU in the ultimate extension of rep• i blica n i nstitilli ona until al Ithe people of North America shall know one government and honor one flag? I cordially support this bill to carry into effect the Mexican treaty, believing that is an important step in the direction of the world’s commerce, which will bring employment to idle workmen, prosperity to the farmer, the mechanic, and the manufacturer.