Metal Worker Plumber & Steam Fitter - Clpdigital.org

ULY 2, 1920 METAL WORKER, PLUMBER AND STEAM FITTER 11
Our Facilities Mean Over-Production
Foreign Goods Must Be Exchanged For Our Surplus
Such Exchange Is Imperative to Save Customer
It Will Restore Money Values
America Must Buy Abroad to Prosper
"p* VERY citizen is interested in the ability of foreign
countries to take things we can make as well
as raise on the farms. They haven't the money and
we have enough. They can participate in the time
honored Yankee practice of swapping what they have
for what they want. They need to borrow ahead so
as to get ready to swap.
The question is shall we lend and will we swap?
Think it over! We cannot avoid doing it. They need
help and this is the best way to give help.
The following is from The Iron age and bears directly
on the matter and will give further support to
the argument:
After proper allowance for the invisible balance
of trade, if we import less than we should, in relation
to our exports, the price of exchange will fall,
thus reducing to us the price of foreign goods, and
advancing the price to foreigners of our goods, whereby
the necessary adjustment will be forced. This
is a law of trade. We shall have noth-
Thisls ing to say. To control the matter it is
a Law necessary for us to act through the
of Trade medium of our purchases and sales.
The exporter cannot force the situation.
He may build up a foreign clientele, at great
expense, and then see the exchange rate advance
the prices the foreigner must pay to get those goods,
without the exporter receiving any higher price,
whereby the foreigner may refuse longer to buy. We
cannot dictate what shall occur, but will have to manage
things right if we wish our desires to be realized.
Before the war it was necessary to export about
$500,000,000 more merchandise a year than we imported,
taking values as reported in the statistics, in
order to equalize an unseen balance of trade, which
was against us to about the amount
One Reason mentioned. We did not find it particle
Must ularly easy to do this, hence there was
Export constant urging that we endeavor to
increase our exports. Imports as reported
are valued at the foreign port, hence freights
paid to foreign vessel owners on our imports were
against us. Exports are valued at our home ports,
but we received, as an offset scarcely anything in
freights paid by foreigners to Ameriean shipowners
on these exports. American tourists spent money
abroad, and foreign born, residing here, sent money
to relatives abroad, sometimes leaving the country
and taking money with them. Several billion of our
securities were owned abroad and we had to take care
of interest and dividend payments. The net of all
this was about half a billion dollars a year, which
we made up by exporting correspondingly more than
we imported.
No precise estimate can be made as to the unseen
balance in the future. Interest and dividend
payments will be in our favor instead of against us.
Qcean
The drafts by the foreign born earning
Freiahts to mone y "l th^ country will be much less
Come our than formerly. American tourists
ry abroad may spend more or less than
they used to do. As to ocean freights,
the balance will be in our favor. According to the
latest figures, 40 per cent of our imports are in
American vessels, and 60 per cent in foreign vessels,
the 40 per cent being nearly all an addition to our
revenue, but there is much more than that, since 50
per cent of our exports are in American vessels, nearly
all of this being a clear addition.
Thus the unseen balance will be very largely in
our favor, perhaps more than half a billion dollars
a year, in place of there being a half billion dollars
a year against us, as was the case before the war.
Gold being out of the question as a means of settlement,
the balance, apart from merchandise, will
have to be settled by the movement of
Securities securities. Assuming for argument
Must Shift that the unseen balance will average
as We Suffer half a billion dollars a year in our favor,
we could have exports and imports
equal and buy a half a billion a year of foreign securities,
or invest the amount abroad, or we could
do nothing in the latter matter and simply import
half a billion more than we exported. Or we could
export half a billion more than we imported and invest
a billion a year. But if we attempt to do the
impossible, to refrain from buying foreign securities
or investing abroad and yet attempt' to export
more than we import, the exchange rates will simply
fall and apply the corrective influence to our foreign
trade, whether we want it to or not.
Floating Foreign Trade Exposition an
Assured Success
Hundreds of inquiries from manufacturers and
others located in every state in the Union testify
to the interest in the First National Foreign Trade
Floating Exposition, announced by the American
Manufacturers Export Association days ago. The
largest exporting firms in the country have signified
their intention of joining in the idea which will place
American exporters on the same basis as the merchants
of Great Britain and Japan. Negotiations
are under way for the refitting of a vessel large
enough to accommodate the exhibitors of American
products so that, from present indications, the boat
will leave New York during October.
The exposition offices at 50 Broad Slreet, New
York City, have been enlarged to take care of the
inquiries that prove that American manufacturers,
interested in foreign trade, are alive to the opportunities
presented by this novel method of introducing
their wares to foreign customers.