In the matter of iron, the United States, which in 1840 had not dreamed of entering the field of international competition, in 1897, as much to her own surprise as any one else's, undersold the English in their own London market.In 1899 there was but one American locomotive in Great Britain; but, of the five hundred locomotives sold abroad by the United States in 1902, England bought more than any other country.Russia is operating a thousand of them on her own roads today.In one instance the American manufacturers contracted to deliver a locomotive in four and one-half months for $9250, the English manufacturers requiring twenty-four months for delivery at $14,000.The Clyde shipbuilders recently placed orders for 150,000 tons of plates at a saving of $250,000, and the American steel going into the making of the new London subway is taken as a matter of course.American tools stand above competition the world over.Ready-made boots and shoes are beginning to flood Europe,--the same with machinery, bicycles, agricultural implements, and all kinds of manufactured goods.A correspondent from Hamburg, speaking of the invasion of American trade, says: "Incidentally, it may be remarked that the typewriting machine with which this article is written, as well as the thousands--nay, hundreds of thousands--of others that are in use throughout the world, were made in America;that it stands on an American table, in an office furnished with American desks, bookcases, and chairs, which cannot be made in Europe of equal quality, so practical and convenient, for a similar price."In 1893 and 1894, because of the distrust of foreign capital, the United States was forced to buy back American securities held abroad; but in 1897 and 1898 she bought back American securities held abroad, not because she had to, but because she chose to.And not only has she bought back her own securities, but in the last eight years she has become a buyer of the securities of other countries.In the money markets of London, Paris, and Berlin she is a lender of money.Carrying the largest stock of gold in the world, the world, in moments of danger, when crises of international finance loom large, looks to her vast lending ability for safety.
Thus, in a few swift years, has the United States drawn up to the van where the great industrial nations are fighting for commercial and financial empire.The figures of the race, in which she passed England, are interesting:
Year United States ExportsUnited Kingdom Exports 1875 $497,263,737$1,087,497,0001885 673,593,506 1,037,124,0001895 807,742,415 1,100,452,0001896 986,830,080 1,168,671,0001897 1,079,834,296 1,139,882,0001898 1,233,564,828 1,135,642,0001899 1,253,466,000 1,287,971,0001900 1,453,013,659 1,418,348,000As Mr.Henry Demarest Lloyd has noted, "When the news reached Germany of the new steel trust in America, the stocks of the iron and steel mills listed on the Berlin Bourse fell." While Europe has been talking and dreaming of the greatness which was, the United States has been thinking and planning and doing for the greatness to be.Her captains of industry and kings of finance have toiled and sweated at organizing and consolidating production and transportation.But this has been merely the developmental stage, the tuning-up of the orchestra.With the twentieth century rises the curtain on the play,--a play which shall have much in it of comedy and a vast deal of tragedy, and which has been well named The Capitalistic Conquest of Europe by America.Nations do not die easily, and one of the first moves of Europe will be the erection of tariff walls.America, however, will fittingly reply, for already her manufacturers are establishing works in France and Germany.And when the German trade journals refused to accept American advertisements, they found their country flamingly bill-boarded in buccaneer American fashion.
M.Leroy-Beaulieu, the French economist, is passionately preaching a commercial combination of the whole Continent against the United States,--a commercial alliance which, he boldly declares, should become a political alliance.And in this he is not alone, finding ready sympathy and ardent support in Austria, Italy, and Germany.