Fiscal

1856

Buchanan (Mar. 4, 1857, to Mar. 4, 1861).

OUR HOME MARKET AND INTERNAL COMMERCE.

Our annual bank clearings, which have for several years been largely in excess of $100,000,000,000, indicate the enormous home market and internal commerce enjoyed by the people of the United States. These bank clearings, of course, include many duplications in business transactions, and include the many stock and bond sales of Wall Street and other financial centers. What the exact figures are which represent our actual annual purchasing power cannot be definitely stated, and yet it will not be difficult to get at the approximate amount. In the first place, the value of our manufactures probably now exceeds $18,000,000,000-add to this the value of farm products amounting to at least $7,000,000,000, the product of our mines which is $1,500,000,000, and our forests and fisheries worth at least a billion dollars more, and we have a total of nearly $27,000,000,000. But in connection with this amount we must consider the vast sums of money expended in transportation and distribution, in merchandizing and in the thousand and one avenues of trade and commerce throughout the country.

It must be considered that the retail value of all products is largely in excess of the value at the factory or at the farm, and the former more nearly measures the purchasing power of the people and the amount annually expended for the necessaries and luxuries of life. Thirty billions of dollars is most conservatively estimated as the amount of money annually expended by the people of the United States. It has been estimated by most careful statisticians connected with our mercantile agencies that the amount is in excess of forty billions. The exact figures, however, are not necessary to know when we do know to a certainty their approximation. It is well to compare this amount for a moment with the markets of the entire world. According to the Bureau of Statistics, the imports of the world at the present time are but a little in excess of $10,000,000,000, the exports amounting, of course, to a similar sum. When, therefore, the imports and exports of the world are added together to make up the sum total of all foreign commerce, we have an amount exceeding somewhat $20,000,000,000; and yet it is clear that this amount as compared with our own purchasing power already given above is erroneously doubled, that is to say, the entire markets of the world for foreign products are worth only about $10,000,000,000, while our own market is worth at least $30,000,000,000. If we were to add both sales and purchases our market would have a value at least $60,000,000,000.

However, then, we may figure this market value, whether we take the figures of purchases alone, or double them by including both sales and purchases, we are very safe in making the statement, that the home market and internal commerce of the United States is fully three times in value the entire markets of the World for foreign products, even including our own share of that foreign commerce. In other words, if we could sell all the goods that are purchased in every foreign port on the face of the globe, it would be only about one-third the value of our own home market and internal commerce.

We must consider in this connection also the fact that there are freights and many handlings of goods which go from country to country; there is much loss in carriage and decay; there are several profits to be considered, and as compared with the mar

ket which we have at our very doors, even if our own market were only equal instead of three times the value of foreign markets, still it would be far more desirable in every way.

When, therefore, free-traders wish us to open our markets to the producers of other countries in order that we may enlarge somewhat our sales abroad-a very questionable conclusion, moreover-we should consider just what we would be giving to foreign competitors, and just what we are likely to receive in return. We should be slow, indeed, to sacrifice any portion of our splendid home market, and should feel quite satisfied that it is of such proportions as to be three times the value of all the markets of the world combined, ir we could have every one of them without contest and without competition.

Our sales abroad in 1906 amounted to $1,743,763,379, or about 5 per cent. of our sales in our home market. And yet we sold more abroad than any other country, while the value of our home sales will exceed that of many countries combined.

For over a century we have been building up this splendid market and this splendid home trade, and it would be the sheerest folly to abandon or sacrifice one iota of what we have so sure in hand for the chimerical and illusionary markets thousands of miles away.

GOVERNMENT FINANCE, PER CAPITA.

-Year ended June 30

Dolls.

0.84