New Britain Herald Newspaper, July 9, 1921, Page 10

VASTLY IN EXCESS OF By FRANCIS H. SISSON, Vice President Guaranty Company of New York. N THE widest sense, the com- modities which nations have to offer their neighbors fall into three general categories; representing natural resources—the product of manufac- tures—the product of machinery and the factory worker’s skill ; and those commodities fleld, forest and mine; capital—the accumulated of industry of every description. So long as we were a country with w great area of new land in the West Inviting development and attracting foreign capital we were, as regards other countries, a debtor We had not capital enough our- selves to carry out the huge devel- opment, and we called in the assist- aece of those nations with money to lend. By investing capital here for- eigners were creating a demand for and supplying the means to buy Therefore we furnish- ed an excellent market for the prod- their goods. ucts of our creditors. Creditor nations as a rule seek payment of their Interest or their principal in money, as they are likely to reinvest where expe- rience has proved that loans placed .to advantage. Rather, thcy Trust while rich natural resources, such as coal iron, are often lacking in raw surplus per. nation. partly in other services. But countries which were exported. do not| The United States became may be | manufactured goods. want payment In merchandise, since the larger manufacturing nations, in many fundamental terials, such as cotton, wool or cop- So the lenders of capital took their pay from the United States in such of our goods as they needed for their economic existence; we in turn received pay for our goods sold in foreign countries partly in mer- chandise, partly in capital loans and exporting capital and manufactures on a large scale were getting their equivalent in the form of merchandise import- ed greatly in excess of their goods only one of the world’s largest sources of raw materials, but also one of the largest producers Before 1914 we became a country with a sur- Loavasnaiy oy sl L i bilaicaiias, e VAST QUANTITIES OF HEMP FROM THE ORIENT ARE SHIPPED TO SEATTLE—-AN ITEM‘ IN THE RESTORATION OF THE BALANCE OF| E WITH US, \ and ma- plus of raw materidls. excess of our imports. the [ of fundamental change in the rela tions of our economic life. ed to exploitation and we not | already using. of the war. Nevertheless, just before the out- break of the war there were signs that we were approaching a period All our unoccupied territory had been open- were turning to more intensive develop- ment—the larger and better utiliza- tion of the things which we were ‘We were beginning to export capital on a small scale. This change from a debtor to a creditor country was accelerated by And now we have definitely reach- manufactured goods for export in addition to our already large sur- But we re- mained on the whole a debtor coun- try, as we used more capital than we ourselves could supply. For for- eign capital investments we paid with merchandise exports greatly in plus over domestic consumption nf{ ed the position of other highly de- veloped nations. Foreign countries have borrowed from us to the ex- tént of more than $13,000,000,000, of which huge amount $2,500,000,- -1000 of funded debt is owed to pri- vate lenders in this country. More- over, the movement of capital from this country to other lands is still going on, for foreign loans of a to- tal of nearly $100,000,000 were placed in this market in the first two months of 1921. ° We must con- tinue on this path of development or we shall lose our place of eco- nomic and political power in the world, and with it our high hopes and ideals of service to mankind. COUNTRIES ARE REPAYING US FOR OUR EXCESS OF EXPORTS At the present time we are in the anomalous position bath capital and merchandise in ex- cess of our merchandise Such a condition cannot continue indefinitely, for it would lead far away from any true balance of trade. Already the balance is over- weighted, and foreign countries are having their debts to us. It is obvious, those countries which owe us for our goods and capital are again re- established, financially and econom- ically, they will have to pay us with something more tangible than new or refunded loans. S Ay S AL o ANADIAN RIVER = S NI TAL 16 EXTENSIVELY THE LUMBER INDUSTRY OF CANADA AMERICAN INVESTED IN are only two metkh ¥ which indebtedness can be liquidated. One considerable means at hand for payment of the enormous sums owed to us is in the form of goods imported in excess of our exports. Clearly, other nations cannot sell goads to us in sufficient amounts to liquidate their huge indebtedness, if our International trade is to be sad- dled with burdensome duties. however, i now more of an ecgRom- ic than a political question, whith must be dealt with in such a way that differences in cost of produc- tion will not prevent the competi- in foreign markets of goods with those from other coun- tion TEA FORAMERICA BEING UNLOADED FROM RIVER BOATS AT HANKOW,CHINA- |MPORTS FORM ONE CONSIDERABLE MEANS BY WHICH FOREIGN tries. The of exporting imperts.| While great difficulty in paying |imports. then, that when Obviously there only It other means by which foreigners can pay their debts to us is by our continued expori of capital on a large scale. It is likely that we will continue to reinvest in the bonds of foreign gov- ernments, ratnicipalities and corpo- rations and that government loans wili remain. sus- pended for several years. these and main of ccnsiierable importance on the debit side of our fereign trade balance it is quite conceivable that our exports of merchandise will re- main in excess of our merchandise is certain, that the enormous excess characteristic of our present trade wlll be considerably diminished. Such a change yin our foreign trade balance need not, and proba- bly Wwill not. be made at the ex- peunse of our export trade. world still requires things which we car best supdly. chandise can, if adeq be increased; though carried for long. duty of devising mac] and th ances, bank: tomers lands. Tbese have met modity. equinped for long term foreign trade. of the situation, ready various efforts ration, ration, ance Bank, the Copper this posed establishment. of purpose of furnishing merchandise. This, Our banks cannot work has been its rise. our considerable terest on our cther items ra- every individual citizen. modities in our country, however, which is prosperity. The trade. present reaction In pri its course our export tro ed by credit and bauking onsibility, 1s already &t werk oo TWhen the cos Las rumt in mer- support- facilities, present el the great excess over imports camnot be The panker is charged with the ery for car- ng and settling international-bal- feeling his larger ons have been fur- nisling many banking facilittes and information services to their cus- doing business in other our immedi ate requirements and nave taught our merchants that credit, granted wisely, 1s a triversal com- But our banks are not wien financing of The chief necessity in fact, American bankers and business men to develop adequate credit and com- mercial machinery to meet the de- mands of present exigencles. Al- is for have beea oy made in this direction, including the revival of the War Finance Corpo- the establishment of the Federal International Banking Cor- poration, the Foreign Credit Corpo- the International Accept- Export As- sociation, the First Federal Foreign Baoking Association 2nd the pro- the Foreign Trade Financing Corporation, with a capital of $100,000,000, for the long term credit to foreign purchasers of our By and large, however, the duty of supporting our forelgn trade does not rest entirely on the barker. alone; they must have the co-operation of their customers, if our trade is not to suffer a decline as spectacular as If the banks tied up their liqu‘m funds in long term investments, "no matter how good | the security, there would soon be no morc liquid capital, and the wants of our agriculturists and manufac- turers could not be supplied. The variety of our foreign trade is now so wide that an excess of production over consumption reacts upon cvery class of our population. The duty, thercfore, of supporting our foreign trade in this time of re- adjustment to the more permanent conditicns of the future rests on If we go on taking measures to prevent the sale of foreign com- if we try to ercct barriers which retard the flow of commerce, we will in the long run handicap ourselves and work incomparable injury to our future Already we are seelng the \products of field and factory piling up in granary ard warehouse. The real problem, therefore, is the maintenance of the volume of our | RUSSIAN PAPERS PAN OWN NATION Do Not Hesitate to Print Uncom- * plimentary Things "% Reval, Esthonia, July 9. —Those ¥ who have the idea that Bolshevik aewspapers printed in Russia say only rosy things about the countsy could quickly be disillusioned by perusal of the papers themselves. During the past four months, the principal Mos- zow and Petrograd newspapers have been startlingly frank about some of the conditions that Communism has produced. The Moscow Economic Life not long €0 wrote the following description of conditions on one of the Cmmunis® . “mdel” farms: “The farm presented a picture of complete desolation, For years there bave been no repdirs. Windows are broken, walls are falling in, and some of the buildings are in ruins. Work- ers live in terrible, dirty rooms, black from smoke. In one of the rooms there lives a calf, placed there by the foreman despite protests of women tenants. “There are neither potatoes nor vegetables for the workers. In the summer no one has bothered to store them. People are starving, cattle are starving. In the farm there are 32 persons, of these six are officials.” The old program of the Bolshevik government called for an increase in ihe number of thexe “model” farms. Tke new program by which the peas- ants are given nine years tenure of HOLE IN GROUND City of Puster in Controve:sy Over Property Righ's ' to Si‘terranean Fassagcway. Boston, July 9.—Property rights in a hole in the siound uniler Wiater street in the of Bosion's .1¢ tail shoppig dqistrict are in dispu‘= between the city and the Boston Elevated Railway company. The hole an underground passageway the existence of which the dispute has riade known for the first time to thousands of persons who travel daily ihrough the tunnels, subways and sub-subways in the city. It was built some years ago and runs the whole length of Winter street lying betweca senter is the roof of the Cambridge-South Bos- ton tunnel and the street surface. It has never been used. Attention has recently been called to it through a petition of the Railway company for sanction of a plan to rent the space to abutting stores for storage use. The company contends that inasmuch as it holds a lease of the Cambridge-South Boston tunnel, it has a property right in the dark void above. City officials assert that thc passage is not a part of the tunnel and that if any income is to be had irom it the city is entitled to it. The passage or gallery as the rail- way company describes it came intc being because the Boston Rapid Transit Commission which had charge of the construction of the under- sround system built this section of tunnel not by boring but by digging from the surfgace and found it cheap- er later to roof it over under the street than to fill in the cavity. CHAMPION SPENDER TO VISIT U. S. ‘heir land, practically does away with them, No less frank were more recent ad- missions in the Moscow niwspapers about the economic state of Russian {motories, some of which were shown to be producing less than five per sent of what they produced before the war. TO REBUILD ALHAMBRA. Famous Moorish Castle in Spain Is to Be Fully Restored. Madrid, July 9.—Plans for the re pair of the old Moorish palace of the Alhambra, at Granada, have been ap- proved by the government and the minister of public instruction has signed a royal order appointing arch- Itects to execute the work as rapidly a3 possible. The Alhambra was built late in the 13th century by the Moors, who had Invaded Spain and established a Moor- ish kingdom. The Moors held sway over large areas of Spain from 1235 until 1491 leaving behind them many aoble works of architecture, the most beautiful of which was the Alham- bra. During the past few years the ancient building has been in need of repairs, but government action to re- .store it was delayed for various rea sons, lal!ended the Auteiul races. Mrs. Smith-Wilkinson, who is creating a furore in Europe s coming to America. lavish spending, annual income of $80,000,000. by her European reports say she has an She is shown here in" & dress in which she It is decorated with many diamonds. Paris papers say she spent $5.000,000 in three weeks. —The “Fore!” weather and the annual Father and look at the size of S SEASON’S BIGGEST HAILSTONES * man forgot to yell season’s hailstones—nearly as big and as golf balls—pelted players ment at Scarborough, N. Y. ‘em. biggest deadly in the Son golf tourna- Just CAMPAIGN FRAUD CHARGED Executive Committee of North Da- kota Non-Partisan League Plani to Refute Charges Made. Fargo, N. D., July 9.—After a sea- sion lasting from yesterday afternoon, the state executive committee of the Non-Partisan league considering the situation arising from charges of mis- handling of recall campaign funds made in a suppressed edition of the Courier-News, Wednesday, adjourned early this morning without having decided on a course of action, it was announced at league headquarters where the meeting was held. A formal statement which A. A. Liederbach, chairman, announced Yes- terday would be given out following the meeting, failed to materialize, Mr. Liederbach explaining that the com- mittee’s plans still were in the pro- cess of formation. He said that while slight differences of opinion existed, the committee worked harmonicusly on all questions. Unofficial reports from the commit- tee rooms were that the committeo had spent v.rtually its entire time in compiling a report of receipts and expenditures of tha recall campaisn money and that this would be used o refute the charges of mishandling funds. j MRS. KABER . ON TRIAD—Mrs. Eva Catherine Kaber is here shown as she went on trial at Cleveland on | sirst-gesree murder charge. She is nd, Daniel F. Kaber, two ago. Her mother and her daughter a_ previous marriage face similar in- dictments, On Your Vacation Whether you are at the shore or in the mountains, you will want to keer in touch with the folks at hom- Have the HERALD Follow You While you are away the Herald’s staff of reporters will be on the job and you can get- the New Britain news daily as when you are at home by the paper mailed to you. you do having Sent by mail daily, the sub- scription price is the same as at home 18c a Week Send in your order before you leave for your vacation.