Our National Prosperity

'The business men ol this country." saya the B&ttlmore Manufacturer's Record, "are too apt to forget the souadness of Amerlca's vaat progresa. The United States is. to-day, nlmoet the only great country ia the world Whose future is brightor tlian its past. Breat Brttaln has. in ma:iy reapects, reached the limit of its greatness. lt can no longor be the manufacturing center f the world. for we have taken the faremost posltion iu that line. lts vast iroo and steel business is yearly increaeing i:i oost of producticiii. hile ours is decreasing. It cannoi meet the worlil's ever-j?rowing deniand for iron and steel, because it tannot increa.se its production to nny greal cxtent in eompetition with this country. It produced 110 more pig-iroo in 1890, notwithstanding the high pricee prevaillng, thiui in 1882, whlle we more than doubled our output. Much of lts oro it imports f rom far distant regions. lts cotton Is all knparted. lt spends about .$750,000,000 a year for foreign food-stuifs. On tlhe continent, every nation is burdened with debt, and none can ever bope to pay off its obligations. iloasured by tlicir natural resources and tlu'ir possibllltles, they are bankrupt. In all of them the cost of production and of living is Bteadily Increaslng. In tJie United States we have scarcely laid the foundation of our future greatness. In natural resources we are richer than a'l of Europe combined; vve are paying our debts fatrter than they are due; wc have barely ecratched the ground in the development of our mineral wealth; we were rich enough to stand a decrease last year of 900,000.000 buslu-ls of grain as oompared wlth 1889, on account of bad weather; we are rich enongh in additian to this to sand .70,000,000 iu gold to Europe wlthin a ivw months without creating ajiy financial trouble, and that, too, after Europe had unloaded on us millions of dollars of our stocks, because our securitie.s were the only ones in the world that found a cash market when the Barings and others were trying to save tlu-mselves. In ten years, from 1880 to 1890, we liave added $2,000,000,000 to our capital invested in manufactures, au lacrease of nearly 75 por cent. In The samo time the valuo of our manufactured product has rison from !?5.:;00.000,000 to $8,600,000,000, a gain of $3,000,000,000; or, in otber words, we are producing manufactured goods at a rate of $3,300.000,000 a year more than we wereten years ago. TIn increase in capital invested in manufactures in ton years, from 1880 to 18ÍK. Avas groater than the entire amount of e-apital invested in 1870, or only twenty years ago. In these ten years the growth of our manufacturing interests wa-s groater than the growth from the f-ottlement of America up to 1870. In these ton years we havo built 75,000 miles of railroad, almost as much as our total mr.eage in 1880." Down in Peru, American flour brings $18 per barro!. Peru ought to be a gwd reeiprocity country. It would help her people to breadstuffs, etc, and our people to more BUgar, olive oil- not made out of poanuts. Yankee fashion - guano and the rich products of hor minos. Appleton's Encylopedia tells us that as long agio as 1853 the tirade of Peru witih the Dnited States was as follows: Peru bought of this country $Ö8C,025 wortih and Bold to us $4,883,380 wortb. Ai tin ■ same tüfie Peru imïwrtort from Great Britain $4,606,290. Hor exporta to Prance arnounted tn $1.441.605 Avíalo hor importa $1,883,780, France being only country tli.it had the bes! end of tli' bargin witii Peruviana. It is only a question of timo under at po'.icy, wben all of the South rican etatee will look i thefer natural commercial ally, tlke T'nitoi! stal os of urth America (or trade relations.