Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 October 1900 — INCREASE OF IMPORTS [ARTICLE]

INCREASE OF IMPORTS

American People Have More Money to Spend Than Formerly. Our imports for the year ending June 30, 1900, amounted to $840,714329, a sum greater by • nearly $100,000,000 than the highest amount reached by our imports during any one fiscal year which had its beginning during the last free trade administration. Four years ago President McKinley said in the course of one of the speeches which he made to visiting delegations: “Nor d<? I Ujipll it is economy toTuy goods cheaply abnßtf? if there-, by enforces idleness at home.” The imports of 1900 do not come under the head of goods which, by being bought abroad, have enforced idleness at home. There has been no idleness a J home since McKinley”wa§ elected and the policy of protection was re-established. The protective tariff has seen to it that foreign producers have_ not been permitted to sell their paupej made~jgoo<ls_Jn. fW American market at prices that would take the brrtbf out of the mouthy of .American workmen. On tlig ’contrary, our imports this year represent largely goods which could not have been duplicated at home, and they have been paid for, and more than paid for out of the surplus of American exports which busy American producers, made prosperous by the enactment of the Dingley law, have sent abrorfll, and the increase In the amount of our imports implies merely an increase in the amount of money which the American people have had to spend. The increase in their purchases of foreign goods is but a fractional part of the increase in their purchases of American made goods. .