The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-11-20
IMMENSE F|ELDFOR
NEW CAPITAL WHEN
BUSINESS SETTLES
Railroads Will Make Heavy
Demand and Canal Will
Require Much
BIG DEVELOPMENT
PLANS UNDER WAY
Hydro Electric Field of South Is At
tracing Attention of All Men
With Prophetic Vision
Into Future
BY HOLLAND


New York. November 19.-(Special THE
question is sometimes asked What will
be the opportunities for profitable invest
ment of capital in large amounts after
the present hesitancy which characterizes
the American business men and reluc-
tance toward large investment which is
the characteristic of capital at this time
are ended and confidence, together with
hope, is restored?"
In financial circles in New York we
hear much of the encouraging require
ments which railroad companies will make
within the next u months. The common
estimate is that they must have as much
as S600, 900 in order to take up short
time notes which will mature within the
next 12 or "A months. OF course, some
of these notes may be renewed, and in
that way the demand for fresh capital
will be reduced from the amount which
would be necessary in case all those short
time notes are paid off in cash.
But If anyone goes from the Wall street
district to the offices of the railroad man.
ayers and chats with these managers for
a while he will speedily discover that the
taking care of short time notes that will
mature within the next II or 10 months is
by no means the chief problem for the
railroad companies to work out. There
must be very large amounts of new cap
years or the railroads of the United States
will fall far behind the demands which
are to be made upon them by men of conf
meree, agriculture or industry who want
to buy transportation.
Every well informed man admits that
the demand for fresh capital throughout
the world is at this time greater than the
supply. Still beyond any question the
crops harvested in the United States in
1873 and the amazing increase in our
command of foreign markets for Amer
lean manufactured commodities will bring
to this country several hundred millions,
at least, of new wealth.
What will be done with this new wealth?
How will it be invested? Will any con-
siderable part of ii be utilized in the
exploitation and development of great
natural resources? How much of it will
respond to- the unquestioned demand for
capital which will be made soon after the
opening of the Panama canal to COM
merce?
Some idea can be obtained of the OPP
portunities which are open for the in
vestment of great capital and in the
form of permanent investment from a
few brief illustra tions taken from activi-
ties which are now contemplated or which
are already begun.
A Barge Canal
For some weeks a representative of a
81 eat interest in the northwest has been in
this city intent upon securing business
and financial support for proposition
which, il it becomes a material fact, will
connect Duluth with Minneapolis by
means of an artificial waterway capable
of floating barges of considerable ton
mage The proposition is not in any sense
a vague or dream like suggestion, but
has the earnest support of men whose
heads are clear and who believe that
barge canal of that kind would be of
inconceivable advantage to the northwest.
The government in Washington is in
part responsible for this agitation, since
1t was by government aid that navigation
has been extended from the Mississippi
and st. Paul to Minneapolis.
Canalizing the Hudson
As though to match this northwestern
barge canal proposition, the new governor
of New York, Robert Glynn, will advo-
cate at an approaching meeting of the
association interested in perfecting deep
water navigation to many places in the
United States the canalization of the Hud-
son river from the point at which the ships
of Hendrix Hudson cast final anchors up
the Hudson to Albany.
That is a distance of about 30 miles.
AS the Hudson is a navigable river to AL
bany, although above the city of Hudson
only for boats of small draft, work of this
kind must be undertaken by the govern
,,ent itself Governor Glynn argues that
at an expense of perhaps not over $1,000
600, certainly not in excess of $500 600.
the government can dredge a channel in
the Hudson between Hudson City and AL
bany capable of floating vessels of
heavy tonnage. In view of the fact that
the state of New York is to spend and is
spending considerably more than 100000
900 in so enlarging the Erie canal as to
make possible the passage through it of
barges of 1000 tons burden, Governor
Glynn feels that the government ought to
be willing to supplement this work so as
to furnish deep tidewater at the point
where the canal and the Hudson meet.
The governor argues that the people of
the western states are to receive greater
benefit from this enlarged canal than the
people of New York state will receive,
for much the greater part of the COM
modities which will be hoated throuah
this canal will be the agricultural and to
some extent Industrial products of the
states of the northwest.
The South Matching Niagara
Not quite 20 years have passed since
some of the men whose names stood very
high in the lists of men of science of the