Specie. Foreign. 12,847,544 1830 2,178,773 18,145,857 13,077,069 72,295,652 81,520,603 Exports from the United States. Domestic, Total Goods. 68,826,043 required, and have furnished the whole revenue for the support of the Federal Government. The manufactures, rapidly as they have multiplied, have not more than kept pace with the grow$10,824,519 $43,671,894 $54,496,418 ing demands of the home market, leaving little 11,476,022 49,874,079 61,850,101 for export. On the other hand, the surplus of 21,170,635 47,155,408 18,322,605 50,649,500 68,972,105 domestic produce has continually grown in 28,802,984 66,944,745 90,747,729 magnitude, until in 1860 it was eight times as 20,440,934 52,449,855 16,431,830 57,878,117 74,809,947 much as in 1821, and three times as much as 14,044,578 49,976,632 64,021,210 in 1839. 55,087,807 67,434,851 58,524,878 71,670,785 59,218,583 72,890,789 Population-Foreign Goods annually consumed per head, and the Duties annually collected on them. 17,577,876 21,636,553 Cons'm'd The basis of this large trade has been the increased quantities of domestic products that have been exported from the United States, which are as a whole an agricultural nation. The Eastern and Middle States are indeed manufacturing and commercial, but the great wealth of the country consists in its vast tracts of fertile land, open to the enterprising settler almost without cost. Labor actively supplied by immigration, and applied to that land, has drawn forth an annually increasing surplus of raw productions and food, influenced by the growing numbers of the people, the increase in labor-saving machines, and the improved means by which distance is measurably annihilated, and transportation to market cheapened. The great agricultural West has furnished food, and the great agricultural South has furnished tobacco, rice, and raw materials in quantity and abundance that have interested the commercial world. The Northern and Middle States have been supplied with this food and these materials to build up a system of manufacturing goods, for which, under cover of protective laws, they have found an amply remunerative market among the people of the two agricultural sections, whose surplus products have employed eastern vessels in the foreign trade, have paid for whatever of foreign luxuries the growing wealth of the country has 1849. 1850.. 1853.. 1856.. 1858. 1860.. 1861. Total... The average duty on the whole amount has been 21 per cent. The consumption per head gradually advanced from 1842 to 1853, since when it has been nearly stationary. This fact, in connection with the known prosperity of the country, indicates how greatly domestic manufactures have been developed to the profit of the North. The following is the official table of the leading articles that were exported in 1861, as compared with those of 1860, before the secession, and in 1840, previous to the great change which took place in British commercial legislation in 1842, by which her markets were opened to American provisions, that had been before prohibited. The figures show in what particulars the great decrease in the business of 1861 took place: 188,870,918 81,757,070 96 1851.. 24,250,000 8 02 194,526,639 49,017,567 92 1854. 64,224,190 27 Of which also a number of railroads radiate through a fertile region, supplies a large proportion of the food exported. The rapidity with which that region has developed produce under the action of the railroads is apparent in the following table: Receipts of grain at Chicago. Years. 1836.. 1854... 1855... 1857.. 15,262,394 3,135,484 3,015,596 1859... 1860... 1,479,284 17,385,002 26,869,989 This great increase for the year 1861 grew principally out of the large crops. These crops could not go South, and being turned on the lakes, caused a great demand for tonnage, and a rise in freights, which almost absorbed the value of the grain, leaving little to the farmer. The Illinois Central Railroad took corn from its land debtors in payment of instalments to the extent of 1,800,000 bushels, and altogether the road delivered 15,000,000 bushels, or five times as much as it delivered in 1855. That was the product of land which the Government had vainly offered for sale more than 10 or 15 years, until it gave 2,500,000 acres to the road to aid its construction. That being done, the land was rapidly settled, and the result is the large annual addition to the exchangeable values of the country. having aided in more than doubling the export of Western produce in one year, thus developing an active capital that would soon restore the capital absorbed in their construction. The Southern produce, cut off by the blockade, made necessary by the war, although that blockade did not take place until late in the fiscal year, was very large, and for the present fiscal year will have ceased altogether. The exports of goods and produce will then have barely reached 140 millions, even if the Western produce continues to find so large a market abroad, and by this amount the sum of the importations must be measured, since the country buys no more than its surplus produce pays for. the importations certain articles are necessaries: tea, coffee, sugar, and molasses. These in the aggregate reach 80 millions, and in 1860 $20,446,586 worth of merchandise were imported free from Canada under the reciprocity treaty. These items alone absorb 100 millions of the proceeds of exports, and leave little for the manufactured goods that have been so largely imported. The Northern States have doubtless consumed the largest proportion of the imported goods; but it has been because they have been larger sellers of their own manufactures to those who furnished the produce exported to pay for their imports. The Western section has produced an aggregate of $200,000,000 of exchangeable values per annum, which they have sold to the East and South in exchange for imported and manufactured goods. The Southern States have produced 400 millions per annum, which they have sold, and taken in pay Northern and imported goods. The outbreak of the secession caused that trade at once to cease. The South could no longer sell, and the North lost a customer for $400,000,000 of goods per annum. Such an event could not take place without producing immense changes not only in the foreign trade, but in internal industry. Those who no longer sold goods to the South had no longer profits with which to buy foreign goods. At the same time the necessities of the Government required the tax on the foreign goods to be increased. shipping, which had been so largely employed in the transportation of cotton, lost much of its The mills that had been acemployment. customed to work up 700,000 bales of cotton per annum, were obliged to close, and the long list of dye stuffs and other manufacturing materials were no longer in request. At the West, where in the last four years settlement has progressed with great rapidity, the harvests were very abundant, and at the same time the Southern outlets for it being closed by the events of the war, it was forced upon the lakes, causing Provisions a great rise in freights, and at the same time low prices to the farmer. Thus the traffic towards the East has been very active, without however a corresponding increase in the return traffic. Milwaukee has also, through the agency of railroads, added largely to the lake trade. The two ports of Chicago and Milwaukee have thus in 1861 delivered 41,412,000 bushels of wheat, or equal to one-half the whole wheat crop of the United States in 1840. So vast has been the progress of production in that region. The annual export of wheat has been, including the year 1861, as follows: 1851. Export of grains from Milwaukee for 11 years. Years. The trade of these two ports of Lake Michigan, as outlets for the great northern valley of the Mississippi, is indicative of the immense capacity of those regions. Toledo, at the head of Lake Erie, receives the produce of Southern Michigan, Northwestern Ohio, and a large portion of Indiana, and pours it upon the bosom of the lake in increasing abundance. Receipts of Flour and Grain at Toledo, with the sources of supply, for the year ending December 31st, 1861. |