The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-03-09
We CAIN IN TRADE
United States May Soon Pass
England's Mark.
Volume of Foreign Business
Increases Every Year.
PICTURES AS AN INVESTMENT
MOrgan's Collection Could Be
Sold at Profit.
How Art Saved Banker Who
Faced Crisis.
PICTURES AS AN INVESTMENT

New York March 9.-f the United
States continues to lend money to Ger
many as our bankers have been doing
now for six months and serves also as
the convenient agent by means Of
which European countries liquidate
their debts to Argentine, such trans
actions serving to increase the volume
of foreign Indebtedness to the United
States, and if investments which Chas-
NJ Schwab and other American CAPT
talists intend to make in China are
really made, then in the course of a
few years we may be able to make
favorable comparison with Great
Britain so far as world trade is con-
cerned. Within a few days the auther-
tic compilation made by the board OF
trade of Great Britain, which shows
what the trade of the leading COM
lnerciaI nations of the world in 1911
Avas, has come to the United States.
The figures contained in this report
have been carefully studied by some
of our experts. A superficial reading
of them justified the impression that
some conditions here and in Great
Britain are paradoXical-
As, for instance, Great Britain I'M
ported more and exported more in the
year 1911 than did any other one com
mercjal nation. Its imports were
enormous and greatly in excess OF
exports. So that upon the face of the
figures there would seem to have been
created heavy debit balance when
would occasion Great Britain some en-
barrassment if the attempt were made
to extinguish it.
The figures, however, do not show the
income which Great Britain received
from her investments in other parts ct
the world. The returns upon invest
ments made in Canada were last sum
Iner estimated by a leading English
banker, then visiting this country, at
not far from As million dollars, using
American money denominations. The
return upon her investments in South
Africa and Australia must be very
large and the aggregate income for
British capital which is invested in
other parts of the world amounts 20
an enormous sum. This goes COM
pletely to offset what is sometimes
called the visible or apparent unfavor-
able trade balance which for many
years the statistics of world trade is
sued by the British board of trade
have shown to exist.
Another Point of View.
Another feature of this official re
port which has been discussed mere IS
the presumption the figures furnlsh
that notwithstanding political agitation
such as Great Britain has not known
for sixty years, and in spite of the
alleged radical, almost Socialisuc, gov
ernmental policies advocated by the
party in power, nevertheless Great
Britain did in the year 1911 a world
business which compares absolutely
and relatively very favorably with any
business of that kind done in previous
years.
Superfcially read, these figures
would seem to show that political
agitations in Great Britain and the
alleged fear of capital that it is to be
ruthlessly attacked by the plain people
have interfered very little with bust
ness done in Great Britain, at least
business which enters into world
trade.
Vast as was the money value of our
own exports in the year 1911, it was
still under the money value of the eX-
ports from Great Britain. England
sent to other ports of the world chiefly
manufactured commodities, cotton
cloth, machinery and steel and iron
products, and exported little or no
agricultural products. We exported
approximately manufactured COM
modities of the money value of a bill
lion dollars and agricultural products
of which cotton was the chief-of
money value little over that figure.
On the other hand, Great Britain
imported mmodities of the money
value of two billions, nine hundred
millions in round mum berS. There was
therefore an apparent trade balance
against Great Britain of about five
hundred and fifty million dollars. But
it is we'll known that this was copl-
pletely wiped out by the income that
Great Britain received from her in
vestments in other parts of the world
and in addition that a large surplus
was created by this income.
One Favorable Trade Balance.
These official figures tell also a story
that seems almost inconsistent with the
reports that prevailed during the year
1911 of business stagnation in the Uni
ted States. For the statistics show
that the United States is the only one
of the great commercial nations of the
world whose business in 1911 yielded Il
favorable visible or apparent trade
balance. The British statistics fix this