Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1896 — Our Increasing Exports. [ARTICLE]

Our Increasing Exports.

In p te of the tariff legislation whioh operates to prevent the extension of our foreign trade there has been a steady increase in exports of our manufactured products. The American manufacturer is the most entorprl dng in the world, the American inventor is tnemost ingenious and the most praoticnl, the Amerioan workman is the most skillful and the most productive. Under fair conditicns the industries of this country ought to command an immense foreign trade. Even as matters stand our manufaotnrers aro const ntly enlarging their foreign trade, and onto - ing new markets. Our exports of menu • factored preduots h.s beon co tinuons for several years. It was $130,000,000 in 1888, $151,000,000 in 1890; $168,000,000 in 1892, $182,000,000in 1894, and $228,000,000 in 1806. At the present rate of inoreaselt promises to be $260,000,000 in 1807. For the single month of September it u as over $5,000,000, and t at too at a time when business was dull and the Presidential campaign had created-great uncertainty .s to future crenditions. Our exports of ootton goods have hot increased so fast this year as thevdidin 1888, but still there has been an increase over a’l former years. In iton and steol and their manufactures our advance has been most remarkable. In this line onr total exports in 1888 wereonly $17,000,000; will be fully $41,00i),000 this year.— The next largest Increase has been In our exports of articles mnde from wooo and leather. Amerioan oarpets are now sold largely in England and several countries of continental Euiope and the foreign demand for the American shoe is constantly increasing. The exports of nearly every article whioh is manufactured on a large soale in this country are growing We send abroad many carriages, wagone, street cars, musical instruments, agricultural machinery nnd implements and various other artioles which attest American skill and enterprise.

The first thing song) ess should do when it assembles should be to strike from the statute books that provision in the lew which permits creditors to exaot from debtors gold obligations. No American citizen should be permitted to discriminate against any money that the government makes a I< gel tender for tne p iyment of debts. If such a thing is to bo indefinitely permitted all obligations will be made paynble in gold, and as the ag gregate indebtedness of our country, na' tional, munioipa l ahd corporate, is more than twenty billions, or five times the total gold supply of the world, where will the people get the gold to redeem tbfii obligations? H nee the government, contrary to the law and the provisions of its obligations, has adopted the polioy of paving in gold, it has been forced to| borrow $202,000,000 to maintain a gold reserve. T e adoption of such a policy is a fraud upon Ihe American people and sbo’d be abandoned. The polioy adopted bv the Harrison administrctlon and approved by Cleveland’s administration, haR enoonraged creditors at home and abroad to insist upon the payment of all obligations in gold.