The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-11-19
SAYS VANDERRIIjIPP FPS
 PROPHESY IS FALSE ALARM


 Moreover. we are told that this era of high prices will be disastrous. It is true that natural conditions. and not speculation. nor even trusts, have brought about high prices in iron, in foodstuffs and in many manufactured products. Temporarily these prices are injurious to the consumer, but on the whole this is offset in part by the more general em- ployment of the people, and the greater prosperity of farmers, of railroads and of manufacturers than we have ever seen in the past. But natural causes which have brought about these high prices, must gradually bring about in most cases lower prices. In foodstuffs, where we have high prices largely by reason of last years corn shortage. we shall have some what lower prices by reason of the enor- nous increase in our corn crop this year over last. In pig iron the present high prices would tend to restrict consumption if they should continue year or two. but the increasing productive capacity of the country, by reason of the construction of new furnaces, will probably bring about a. readjustment without reducing prices to an unproatable figure. at least to such low prices as prevailed a few years ago, when we were compelled to dump our sur- plus iron on foreign markets without re- gard to price or profit. According tc some oI the arguments recently promulgated. 1t would be more profitable to the coun- try to sell our iron abroad, even at loss. than to find a full consumptive demand at home at a profit. Since all the iron and steel we are making is going into im- mediate consumption and all the lumber that is being produced is needed for con- struction work, while everywhere the call for dwellings, for cars and for other things into which lumber enters is greater than the supply, there is nowhere a sign of overproduction. In one or two branches of the steel trade and in tin plates a re- adjustment of prices is now taking place. Instead of being an unfavorable sign, this is an advantage. since prices in these, as in pig iron, have been somewhat too high, but these high prices are temporary. They have not been brought about by specula- ton, but by conditions forced upon the trade through the unprecedented con- sumptive requirements of the country.
 .1n taking the position that we have been growing too rapidly, as some have done, and that we are thus in danger, may 1t not be that they nave failed to fully grasp the recuperative power of a country of sO,OOo.0OO people with such potentialities for the development of business, the employment of the people and the creation of wealth as no other nation, even as no other continent has ever dreamed of, now that we have been freed, as we were a few years ago, from the great incupus or an un- settled monetary standard, which for years had halted our progress? May they not have failed to give full ap- preciation to the fact that with an in- crease of population of 1500o,O00 or more people every ten years we nave an in- crease in agricultural products of over $2,000, 900 a year, compared with 1S9O and about s5.OOO 100000 a year in manu- factures and mining, compared with the same year. Ten years ago the value of our agricultural products was in round numbers $9.000,0O0,000 a year, and of our mineral and manufactured products Sl0,- 0O0,0O00O0. a total of $13000,00O,0O0. Now our farms are yielding over $5,000000,0 ,000 and our mines and factories about S15,- OOO,OOo 900. a total of $2O.OOO, 100000 year. Thus the output of these two interests is now annually exceeding by S7,000O GOO their output in 1s9O just ten years ago. a gain of 60 per cent, while population only increased about % per cent. Shall our farmers be urged to produce less? Shall our mines and factorIes be advised to curtail production though consumers are eager to take their output even more rapidly than it can be provided?. Do not these facts indicate the soundness of our business conditions, despite the over which have been foisted upon the public, and the speculative craze which was thus created in comparatively limited cir ole? Do they not indicate that our abounding prosperity is so firmly rooted that we have been able, without seriously disturbing business to absorb these over capitalized corporations and stand the undue speculation, coincident with their fioatation? Has not our very prosperity enabled most of these concerns to put themselves on very much sounder basis 
 not. therefore. far less dangerous to us now than they were then? Shall our trade prosperity be jeopardized and our material progress checked by a false alarm, simply because the time has come to call some halt upon the wild specula- tion whose very existence is largely due to the encouragement given So it by some of the great financial institutions of the country?
 'Then what boots the loss of a few million dollars in the volume of our ex- ports or a few million dollars in the in- crease of our imports. when our whole foreign trade is less than 5 per cent of the trade of the country, when this de- crease on the one side and increase on the other are due to our very prosperity. England, France and Germany import vastly more than they export. but mo- body ever imagines that this means pov- erty to either of these countries, nor do we hear of their bankers becoming un- duly alarmed at such temporary and comparatively trifling changes in foreign trade as we have recently had. Might 1t not be better for our bankers, while dis couraging the speculation and over-capi- talization gathered around some of them in the great financial centers of the coun- try, to recognize the ract that If our prosperity should break down when based on such conditions as now pre- vail 1t will be due to their inability to measure up to the opportunity and re- enOnGihilifV xp