The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-05-19

ceived. or is about to receive large war 1 orders
 The president of the Canadian company has apparently deemed it expedient to make public the fact that his company has negotiated explosives for which Russia is to pay SSs0 900 coo, and further to an nounce that he has subet the contract to various manufacturing industries Tn Canada and the United States. It Is fair to assume that he had other reasons In , mind than the mere ratification of public curiosity President Curry S announce ment makes it possible to reach reason able estimate of the money value. in the aggregate of war orders which have been placed in the United States since last September.
 This estimate does not include the money value of the food products the United States has sold to beligerent or neutral nations which have been compelled to make demands of this kind in excess of normal demands in times of peace. The estimate commonly made here is that the aggregate of these war orders IS not far from s1,00O,00 oo00- The single order which the Canadian company has received is nearly one-nnth of that en- tire sum, and is thought properly to be included in the estimate of the aggre- gate money value of these orders, since much the greater part of these war ma- terials will be manufactured in Amer ican manufacturing plants.
 The ease with which orders of that kind are marketed is spoken of in the finan- cial district as excellent proof that our manufacturers regard the belligerent na- tions as abundantly qualified to pay for these commodities as soon as they are de- livered. These payments are to be made in cash or it's equivalent. In some cases, advance payments have been made on account. In one fairly we'll authenticated case belligerent nation paid $300000 as bonus. the equivalent for which was the pledge by the American industry that it would deliver the commodities at speci- fled time several weeks ahead of the time which has ordinarily been required to per- form the work. With this ssoooo0 the in dustry bought and equipped a new plant which almost doubled its capacity, and this was like making a gift of that plant to the industry.
 Securing the Contracts
 Presumably all the contracts are se- cured. in part at least, by the deposit of funds with American bankers. Very like ly this explains in some measure the heavy imports of gold from France. The Canadian contract of which President Curry has just made Acknowledgement has behind it. large amount of funds oiic oi thc cStliudles IS $zV,OOD, cn have been placed in American banks by order of the Russian government
 Very likely ultimately considerable portion of the payments will be liquidated through the sale of American securities which are now held abroad. There are some indications that sales of this kind are now under way. of which there are no public records. A few weeks ago the view taken in the financial district by some of the leaders was that the termina- ton of the war was near at hand, and when that came there would be fp Sisint- ly an end of war orders from Beiligerent nations. But within a week or two it has been observed that there is a change of view regarding the length of the war. the belief being that it Is to be long con tinued, and if 1t Is. there must be not only a continued, but probably increased demand from beligerent nations upon the United States for war material.