ABSTRACT
The reader will find that this chapter is largely made up of statistics. Imperfect though they are in some respects, statistics of foreign trade are sufficiently complete and reliable to give us a more accurate picture of this particular phase of our national economic activities than can be found for almost any other field of economic life. We really know much more about the nation’s foreign trade than we do about the nature and volume of its purely domestic commerce. The statistics that record the history of the foreign trade of the United States are by no means lacking in interest. In fact, they will reward the careful reader with facts that will impress and stimulate his imagination. [Eds: There follows a detailed survey of the statistics (not reproduced here) on the growth and changing composition of external trade in the history of the United States through to recent times (1800-1924).]
…[I] n yet more recent years…[o] ur older export staples-agricultural products-have lost in relative importance, even though the actual amounts exported may be as large as ever. The continued growth of population and the unloosing of nature’s stores of energy in the form of coal and petroleum have turned us more and more toward manufacturing. A larger and larger proportion of our food products and raw materials find a domestic market. It is now our manufacturing industries which have outgrown the home market, and are seeking the markets of the world.
