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Modern Business Geography 
E. The relation of governments to manufacturing. 
1. Look up the labor laws of your state as to (a) minimum wage; (b) over- 
time work; (c) labor disputes and arbitration; (d) safety appliances. 
Decide what parts of your state are especially influenced by these laws. 
Why? 
What technical or vocational schools are there in your vicinity? In what 
parts of the United States are such schools likely to be most highly devel- 
oped? Why? If you were the owner or manager of a large factory, 
would you or would you not favor the establishment of technical schools? 
Explain how a tariff may benefit or injure manufacturing industries. Why 
do the dye and silk industries in the United States assert that they need 
protection by a tariff? Why are the southern cotton mills, which make 
coarse cloth, less insistent on a protective tariff than the northern mills 
that make fine woolen goods? 
Ask some business men how their industries were affected when the latest 
tariff went into operation. When did this occur? Was the tariff intended 
to increase or decrease the amount of protection to home industries ? 
Get a list of articles upon which duties are charged when imported into the 
United States. The World Almanac gives such a list. From this, decide 
which of your local industries are protected from foreign competition. 
6. What parts of the United States are most strongly in favor of protection 
and free trade respectively? Explain. 
F. What a consul does for manufacturers. 
Ll. Imagine yourself a United States consul in a large foreign city. Prepare 
for publication in the Commerce Reports of the United States Department 
of Commerce a statement of the foreign trade opportunities of the city 
where you are stationed. Include a description of (a) the kind of American 
manufactured goods that will interest buyers in your city; (b) the kind of 
goods that the city wishes to sell to the United States; (c) the best trade 
routes for American exporters to use from New York to your city; (d) a 
summary of the transportation facilities, so that American exporters may 
pack their goods intelligently ; (e) advice in regard to systems of measure- 
ment, coinage, and language. 
G. Manufacturers and foreign trade. 
l. Great Britain, which is a great manufacturing country, obtained control 
of the Suez Canal and negotiated with the United States for the building 
of the Panama Canal. Explain the connection between Great Britain’s 
rank in manufacturing and its interest in these two canals. 
Compare the resources of Sweden and of Spain in coal and iron. Sweden 
manufactures much of her ore into high-grade steel and exports it in 
that form, while Spain exports most of her iron as ore. What geographic 
conditions help to explain these facts? 
a