s! His selling force was too small. His American
machinery made more reapers in a month than he could sell in a year. And
in 1904 he fell into bankruptcy under a debt of ten million francs.

An American harvester is practically above competition in foreign
countries, and commands an exceptional price. As for tariffs, there is a
wide open door in Great Britain, Holland, Norway, Bulgaria, Brazil,
Servia, and South Germany. But there is a toll-gate fee of $25 per
harvester in Hungary, and $20 in France; and for lack of a commercial
treaty, the tax has lately been increased in part of Germany, in Hungary,
Switzerland, and Rumania. The harvester companies feel that they have a
substantial grievance against a government that allows them to be not only
hazed and harried at home by tariffs on raw material, but driven out of
foreign markets as well. "The whole world is doing business on a single
street to-day," said one harvester maker; "but the trouble is that there
are two hundred tariff toll-gates along that street."

In self-defence, against these tariffs, the "International" has been
forced to build two foreign factories, one in Canada and one in Sweden.
The Swedish plant is a small affair as yet, making rakes and mowers only;
but the Canadian enterprise supports one-tenth of the city of Hamilton,
and holds about half the Canadian trade. Its worst vexation, so far as I
can tell from a hasty visit, is a lack of Canadian raw materials. Its
chains, bolts, nuts, and canvas aprons come from Chicago, its steel and
coal from Pittsburg, and three-fourths of its lumber from the Southern
states.

The country that perhaps most disturbs the dreams of our harvester
companies, is as far as possible from being one of the great nations. It
is scarcely a country at all--only a scrap of coral reef uprisen at the
foot of Mexico--Yucatan. Yet this is the land on which the United States
depends for binder twine. Manila fibre we can now get from our new
co-Americans--the Filipinos; but there is never enough of it to supply the
millions of self-binders. Only sisal-hemp yields abundantly enough. And
Yucatan is the only spot in the world where sisal can be grown in
commercial quantities.

Yucatan is smaller than South Carolina, with not quite the population of
Milwaukee. It was once the poorest of the Central American states; but
since the arrival of the twine-binder it has become the richest. It sells
from fifteen to eighteen million dollars' w