Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1914-09-13
(By Edgar Sydenstricker, bureau

(By Edgar Sydenstricker, bureau
of applied economics, Washington
Out of the columns of comment OF
the effect Of the European conflict
on the South that have appeared dur
ing the past month, several based
facts are prominent in belief.
First, the South is harder hit by the
war than other sections of the coun-
try;
Second, this is due to the South's
unique ~osition in the industry of the
country;
Third. whatever permanent advant-
age the South may gain from the COM
mercial readjustments that the wal
will demand, it will be in the use OF
the South's opportunity due to its
unique position.
It Is not necessary to quote familiar
statictics to set for the character OF
the South's industries. A single
paragraph will serve to sum up its
position:
With the exception of fruit and
truck products in certain parts of the
South, it is not food producing sec
ton. In no sense does it produce a
surplus of staple foodstuffs. In fact
it does not even supply enough food
stuffs for the consumption of it's own
cities and towns. On the other hand
it's main surplus products are raw
materials for manufacture, the great
er portion Of which goes out of the
South for consumption. Of the thir-
teen million bales Of cotton the South
produces annually, but twenty per
cent is consumed by Southern mills.
Another twenty per cent is consumed
by Northern mills. The remaining
sixty per cent is consumed by other
countries. The Austrian, Italian and
British tobacco buyers in this coun-
try take large proportion of the
Southern crop.
Again, very considerable portion
of the newer capital invested in de-
velOping electrical power and cotton
and tobacco manufacturing has been
coming from France, Germany and
Great Britain. The European conflict
has shut this source of capital out for
years to come, perhaps permanently.
Furthermore, the South relies on
Northern states for another consider
able portion of it's new capital for de-
velOpment purposes, Thus, the South's
industrial position, in spite of it's Ne.
markable progress during the last
ten or fifteen years, is a dependent
one.
1t Is not surprising, therefore. thai
an event or so gigantic industrial and
commercial Importance to the world
as war involving practically all Of
Europe should be of serious immedi-
ate effect on a nor-fo0d- producing.
manufacturing but raw material
producing country. When nations go
to war their eeds suddenly change
BY the call Of me nand masters to the
battlefield and by the withdrawal Of
capital to supply the sinews of strug-
gle. their manufactures are hampered
and their agriculture halted. Especial.
ly is this true of the present conflict
The suddenness Of its happening. the
rapidity of attack and the strain Of
defense, have permitted no gradual
adjustment OF producing factors.
The result is already--in short
six 'weeks-clearly evident. The de-
mand for the theatre of war for raw
material has almost vanished and the
need for food supplies is becoming.
more and more insistent. This result
will be intensified as the war con-
tinues. Even when peace comes, the
first efforts of the exhausted nations,
so history has taught us, will be to
provide for their own ravaged fields
a food supply, and later, as their
power to purchase is revived, they
will need manufactured articles. Raw
materials will be needed in large
quantities again only after a fairly
complete recovery. In the meantime
other countries. deprived OF their
sources of food and manufactured
supplies, will call upon the United
States TO rthe goods that Europe, par
ticularly Germany and France, were
in the habit of furnishing.
This change in the worlds demand
for goods has already been thoroughly
understood. Even with the declara.
ton of war, the keen business sense
of America foresaw the opportunity
and the need of meeting it and grasp
ing it. The Southern business mans
job is harder than the task of the
other business men of other sections
becaue of the peculiar industrial
situation in the South.
The wise currency provisions of the
federal government and the co-opera-
ton of bankers and business men
will, doubtless take care of the plant.
ers whose crops are now in the cot
ton and tobacco warehouses and
barns and of the business men whoj
have financed the planters. But what
Of next year and 1916? What prac- |
ticable methods can be devised; |
To prevent the value OF the stored
raw material from deteriorating
through the adding OF another years
supply?
To consume an appreciably greater
proportion of the raw material in the
South's own factories and enter into
new fields of commerce that the warl
has opened up?
To utilize our plantations and farms
for the immediate needs of the ma
tiOns at war?
Four weeks after the conflict be-
gan a prominent Atlanta banker. who