The Alaska citizen., 1912-04-15

SS3cSS3cG GIcSs:CcSGGGc and next month and next decade: and no man who looks upon the bal anCe sheets of the commerce of this
 nation can fail to see that We are ! undergoing a very rapid chang which is going to alter almost all . the conditions of business in Amer ! ica
 Two Tendencies Show. Two contrary tendencies. if |
 may call them such. are showing themselves.
 In the first place. We used to feed the world, or greater part of il. did We not. with our surplus grain? Well. have you noticed the figures of grain exports? Haven't you seen that We are exporting. talk
 ing the average less and less grain
 and that We are apparently reach
 ing the point where We will not have
 much more than we need for our own consumption. and that therefore
 We won't have grain with which to pay our foreign balances? And at
 the same time if you have looked
 al those same figures of exports you have seen that exports of manufac-
 tured articles have in recent years
 h,pu m hN-
 whereas We are apparently about
 to cease to be the granary of the
 world. We are apparently just be-
 ginning to be the manufacturers of the world.
 That means that the relation ships and the movements of our com
 merce must be altered. Commerce Lacks Study. We have not studied foreign com merce; you realize that We have not taken pains to know what for eign markets are, and to go into them. By that l mean that most cf us have not. Only few men here and there have pushed with studious intelligence into foreign markets. Long ago by an ingenious combina- tion of legislative measures We de stroyed our merchant marine-you
 know that the nation that has the carrying trade can generally see to
 it that it's merchants get the mar kets; and having destr yed our car rying trade, We have denied our selves the privilege Of foreign mar | kets.
 We have got 10 build up a mer- chant marine; we have got to con slider our commercial relationships with the world. And so. just as ! these things are going about. it is
 absolutely necessary that you should fOresee facts as they are going to be
 Canal Important Look at the conditions as they are going to be affected by the open
 ing of the great canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Realize what that will mean to this particu-
 lar part of the world New York. together with her surrounding cities. will not be quite the center of con- mercial activity as at present; l
 mean that New York is not going 10 go on increasing in importance in
 quite the same ratio as in recent decades, because that canal is going
 to have something like the effect
 that the closing of the Mediterranean had when the Turks captured Con- stantinople and shut off the open courses to trade to the Orient.
 Don't you know what happened then?
 Men had to swing around and face the Atlantic. And the minute
 they faced the Atlantic some adven-
 turcus spirit had to appear like Col umbus who would venture across | 'iiooC uilhlIo"H waters anu ina new path to the Indies. In finding | new path to the Indies he stumbled
 on continent and America was re- Vealed; and here land richer in | resources, more resplendent in civili-
 zation has been built up than those regions of the Indies of which Marco
 Polo told Europe.
 l Will Change Base. Now this continent. interposed be-
 tween the Occident and the Orient, is going to change it's base, it's cen
 ter of gravity. Instead of all the
 nerves running across the continent.
 some of them are going to go up and down the continent and down that great central valley of the Mis- i sissippi. A great volume of con-
 merce will start in, and great many
 of the relationships of commerce in l this country a, . going to be radical ! ly a cred.
 | Are you ready for it? Have you
 thought it out? Have you forecast ! it?
 Do you know what it is going to
 mean?
 T am not putting these questions ! tD