The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-05-07
WAR ECHOES

Pittsburg Sun: With the commercial and industries skies clearing as they are now and an internal demand for all kinds of goods made by our manufac ctories feel that the period of pinching has pa ssed and for merchants and others in commercial life cheerfully to look the fu- ture In the face. Naturally the one query in all quarters that arises from time to time is What after the warp What, indeed?
 In an address before an association of bankers in Newark recently John E. Gar din of the National City bank of New York sounded a warning to the United States as he sketched the readjustment of affairs in the old world after the war. The amount of damage, in money. that had been done in Europe up to this time, he said, was estimated to be not less than $46, 900, ,000.000. and the war has just started. When it comes to replacing and repairing and restoring all this tremen- dous waste the real tasks of humanity will begin. To re-establish the equi- librium will take many, many years, and credit will be the one great essential.
 The rehabilitation of industrial affairs is only one phase of the economic question that will confront the makers of the new Europe. The industries will resume with feversh anxiety to recoup for the loss of months of idleness. The workmen will be needing work, and as the consumptive powers of the present belligerents will have decreased fully 50 per cent, wages will be lower than before the war. Our markets and others will be flooded with the output of the continental shops ana the prices will be disastrous to our com petition. He cautions the American peo- pie not to be overconfident commercially for the aftermath of the war is sure to hit us, and in the most vulnerable spot of trade and finance.
 He pointed out that from December to April our excess of exports over imports was s6O0, OO000o. and prophesied that within a year the balance of trade in favor of this country would be billion and a half dollars. It will not be able to remit in gold; there will not be a sufficient ex- change of commodities to reduce it ma terially. This condition can be adjusted only in time. Europe, he points out, holds 8, GOO, 100000 in gold against a bank note issue of S75oo, o,OOo so the metal will be retained at home. He does not an- ticipate that any of the American secur- ties held abroad will be sold in this mar ket after the war The tenor of the speech was moderation and warning against over confidence.
 St Louis Post Dispatch: While the taste of the attack on his successor made the Navy. is questionable there seems to be some basis in fact for his criticism of our lack of fast battle cruisers.
 But if many such craft are now avail able for service in foreign navies, where they are demonstrated large utility. they must have been laid down several years ago. during a period. for instance. when Mir. Von Meyer was in charge of the des- tinies of our navy. He cannot place cen sure on his successor for this deficiency without attaching some of it to himself. If we had had a war at any time this past two years and our navy had been Handicapped by lack of ships of the high est speed MT. von Meyers regime could rot escape responsibility.
 The same point applies to his strictures on the insufficiency of men. The navy may be short handed, but at least it is not as hort-handed by a matter of some 5000 men as it was in Von Meyers time. He was only one of the conventional, com rnonplace fynes in the long succession of navy secretaries, without any such bril- liant record as would justify him in pass ing judgment on others of the same or other types.
 Naval policy leads nowhere" he com plains. Where did it lead when Won Meyer was in office? Under his successor it has at least led away from robber prices for armor plate projectile and other contracts awarded on straw bids
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