The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-01-03
Liquidation Begun In 1913 Continued Balkan
War Reveals Borrowing Abroad Foreign
Selling Depresses American Securities
DOMESTIC INDUSTRY AND TRADE
ACTIVE EARLY BUT TAPERS OFF
Extracts From Bradsreets Review of Years Business With
Forecast for 1914-More Cheerfuness in Closing Weeks
Point to Better General Conditions for the
Ensuing Twelve Months

New York, January Nineteen hun
dred and thirteen was year of disquiet
and disappointment alike in foreign and
domestic finance, trade and industry. The
disquit was worldwide though until the
latter part of this year not so much in
evidence at home as abroad. Disappoint-
ment was keen with those who with
knowledge of the many politico-economic
domestic problems pressing for solu-
tion, were hopeful that the exception
ally strong position of this country's
producing and consuming interests
would render us partially Independent
of. if not entirely immune to, the play
of the large financial forces dom'nat-
' ing the world in the year just closed
and making for depression in finance
and trade. Review of last years events
wonld prove incomplete if sight were
lost of the many resemblances it bore
to 1902 and 1903, Just 10 years ago,
when the so-called rich mans" or
silent panic" occurred. Then conges-
tion in the securities markets was In
evidence, the phrase financial indi-
gestion" was coined the results of much
injudicious capitalization of Industries
were manifest-first in collapsng stock
market prices and later in depressed
trade and industrial conditions-num-
erous strikes and bank suspensions oc
CURED. and all the usual aftermath
was presented of an extended financial
or credit situation being readjusted
New Records of Trade
It has been frequently and with JUS
tice said that the Balkan war and it's
attendant evils did not cause but rath-
er precipitated and revealed the world
wide financial strain of 1913 1t must
with equal justice be held that most
observers failed to adequately measure
and forecast the effects, direct and in
direct. of the war which, starting in
october, 1912. drenched the Balkans
and European Turkey in blood, con-
verted eastern Europe into an armed
camp, caused boarding of gold in Aus
tria, France and Germany, put a prac-
tical period to the European financial
and commercial boom, and in stead
lily widening circles reached into and
affected the finances and trade of
countries thousands of miles away
from and apparently unconnected with
the hostilities. No country proved i'm
mune and all felt the strain of an al
ready greatly overeXtended credit stu
alton. inability to borrow new loans
and difficulty in getting old issues ne
funded. Brazil and India, Germany and
Austria, France and England. Canada
and Mexico. as we'll as the United
States, were affected, this country, per-
haps least of all, because of our won
derful export trade balance, cushionine,
the impact upon us of the outer world s
forces. once again our membership in
the family of nations brought home to
us the real interdeepndence of the
countries, and when we confidently ex-
pected relief for our own financial
needs from our enormous export bal
ance, instead of gold supplies paid US
in settlement of these balances. we re-
ceived back our own securities, which
as in other years of general strain
sold most readily in the worlds mar
kets Indeed, a s the result of three :
cornered exchange operations. we
found ourselves paying other nations
balances in markets where our own
trade interests required payments to
instead of disbursements by us, of the
worlds chief circulating medium.
The worlds financial difficulties bulked
large in our list of problems. but there
was no lack of items of domestic CON
Germ In a session of Congress remark
able for its length. two much agitated
and frequently fought-oVer questions were
forced to a conclusion. The tariff was
revised, but its enactment. by the way,
was coincident with a shrinkage instead
of the predicted enlargement in our i'm
port trade, and coincidently an income
tax was put in operation for the first time
since the civil war period. The currency
measure, designed to take the place of
an outworn and often discredited system,
also became a law. The Union Pacific
Southern Pacific railway merger was dis
solved. and terms were agreed upon be-
tween the telegraph and telephone in
terests and the country's law officers
without the aid of a suit. thus pointing
the way TO an ending of the 10-year pc
riod of harrying so-called big business
through the courts.
Despite. however, the numerous draw
backs arising from money scarcity and
credit strain, the discussion of new eco
nonic measures in Congress, the con-
tinued agitation of new and old laws af-
fecting the rights of combination. the
lowering of the tariff, the unequal. in
some cases deficient, yields of staple
crops. the very high levels of prices of
commodities. numerous failures. heavy
liabilities and hand-to-mouth buying of a
piece with that noted each year since