Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 December 1920 — EXPORTS AND IMPORTS [ARTICLE]

EXPORTS AND IMPORTS

'Before the great war we were a debtor nation. We owed the rest of the world for capital invested here

and (or ocean freight rates on goods brought here in foreign ships. We paid these debts in goods, in an excess of exports. Now we have become a creditor nation and one equipped to do our own ocean carrying with our own merchant marine. Under the circumstances we must be prepared for an excess of imports. In-maintaining for a while an excess of exports in defiance of the laws of trade we are beginning to witness the arrival of the natural penalties. The rates of exchange on South America and the far east, the regions which are the natural customers for our manufactured products, have depreciated to such an extent as to make further exports to those regions almost impossible. Argentina, with exchange on the United States at a premium of 35 per cent, naturally will buy her manufactured goods from Europe, and so we shall lose that market. Europe, on the other hand, will buy her grain from Argentina, in preference to this country. Fortunately our merchants already have shown a realization of the fact that foreign trade -is not a one-way affair, and that a country may grow rich and prosperous on an excess of imports, as did England during the past century, and are adapting themselves to the import business. Plans for assisting our exporters are now before the public and deserve sympathetic attention. Further grants of credit to Europe may be involved, but the effect of this can be only to postpone the time when we must accept her goods in payment. The success of these projects depends primarily upon Europe’s ability to, send us goods and our willingness’ to receive them. —New York Evening Post.