The Alaska daily empire., 1915-07-22
nERroR oR cREpIToR NArIoN9
tst. Louis RepublicJ

(St Louis Republic)
 By the long, hard voyage of debtpaying, the United States is slowly but surely being transformed rom debtor into creditor nation. In order to see whas that means to industrial America let us look at typical creditor nation and typical debtor nation
 England Is a typical creditor nation According to Arthur SteelNlaitland member of Parliament and a writer on economic subjects England received in 1913, about $1OOOO00OO0 as interest her investments held abroad. (See Nineteenth Century for June) In the same year she received about threequarters as much -S750O OO0for her services an ocean carrier or this vast sum she only S67ooOoOOO for current use she added more than billion to her foreign invest ments out of her income from foreign freshts and her interest and dividends from abroad.
 We now see why the"balance of trade" as we n- accurately put it, is always against England England imports than she exports not because she is go- ing bankrupt but because the other nations freight interest and dividends to her in the form of products and manufactures And the sodity of such an econo- mic position apparent from the fact that SO large portion of Englands current income is not "lived up but renvested We begin to understand why sterl- ing exchange is universal throughout the word-why merchants and bankers everywhere are glad to get bills payable in pounds, shings pence lt IS because the whole world owes England l 1t has not been borrow ing her money has been shipping goods in her ships
 We turn now to a typical debtor nation-our own The Walt Street Journal has recently been canvassing the railroad and industrial corporations of the United States to find out what part their securities is held abroad The Lorce Committee has been doing the same thing with respect to the railroads The result of these examinations goes to show that pay Europe m inter and dividends about S1SOOO0OOO year If to this is added the enormous we pay to England, Ger many. France. Norway. Holland and Italy in ocean freghts we shall readily understand how deusive the socaled balance of trade" s and how many hundreds of millions of dollars worth of materials and manufactures we send abroad each year simply to dividends and interest and pay freight bills
 Now there is only road by which we may get from position the position occupied by England It is the way of parsimony. We must pay our debts Nro dofn hfc 'nn Q Il of American securities which absorbed when our war loan was offered extingushed perhaps SSOOooOo or nation. And are investing aboard Since the war tions to the value of about S25O00000O As money is now this means perhaps S15OOOOOO annually which will come to us to offset portion of our interest debt abroad.
 When we become creditor nation like Eng land in 1913 will renves abroad large portions of our gains Foreign fnanciers, railroad builders and manu lecturers will come to for loans. We shall do as England does. We shall lend cash in the few cases when cash is needed; but for the most part we shall send abroad. foreign securities the pro- ducts of our furnaces mills lahes and looms. Our in- dusrial will trob with energy. We shall build rice mills for India and China locomotives for Japan Argentina turboelectric generators for the noun tans Of Brazil and Peru. loading machinery for fifty ports in score of lands railway for roads that put a glrdle around earth But the only way to set to this much to be desired position is to restrain the impulse spend to live economically and to buy back our own securities from the debtors overseas-ust what we are doing