The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1915-05-01
AMERICA SHOULD Be !.
LEADER IN TRADE
(Contia = from Page Ope.,

LI0DLn Nv IWUl
i (Conti;. - from Page Ope.,
slider what the extraordinary change
Is which has come over the face of GU,
foreign trade since these things were
done.
"a floating debt of perhaps fou,
hundred million dollars has been pait
1 In goods, and not in gold. Some oil
the gold we had exported to pay what
we owed before the war has come
back to us to pay for debts due us
IL amounts, since the first of Deem
Der to over six hundred million dol
l lars. We are saving money as a ma
ton at an astonishing rate The ma.
lions of the world turn to us for cash.
The nations turn to us, both belliger-
emit and neutral. not only to furnish
them goods but to loan them the
money with which to pay for the
goods they buy from us. We are lend
ing the world money and we are sell
ling the world goods, and both to such
an extent that our foreign financial
outlook and the condition of our ex-
port trade has taken on within ten
months an entirely new Significance.
A new spirit has come into our COM
mercial life, a new sense of relation
ship to others and of our power to
help them and of our ability to sup
ply them"
Industrial Inertia.
The secretary said that there was
too much industrial inertia" when
the necessity for broadening the for
eign outlook of the country developed.
Training in national inability had
done it's work." he continued, land
when the hour of opportunity struck,
relatively few of us were ready to
take the step of progress"
Business men, he said, however,
were awakening to the opportunity
and accepting the necessity for eff
fiicent development. He mentioned
the establishment of American banks
abroad as a forward step.
ut is doubtless risky he continu-
ed, ito foretell what the ultimate eff
feet of the current war shall be upon
our commerce. We know where we
were before the war began-a great
and growing competitor of others who
had many advantages over us. We
know where We are now while the
war goes on-the one great industrial
and commercial country which is at
peace and certain to remain so. These
things we know and we are glad that
they are so. One of our great COM
petitors has been for eight months out
of the market. No one has suffered
from her competition during that per-
iod. Another and lesser competitor
also has been excluded. A third great
competitor has been so intensely &C.
cupied in the struggle as to be unable
to sustain at highest pitch in other
fields the commercial enterprises
which has made her great, and a
fourth. having much of her industrial
territory occupied by hostile troops,
is in a measure crippled thereby in
the foreign trade.
Two factors will affect America
favorably in the coming days. One is
the loss of good will by her competi-
tors through enforced absence from
business. The ether is the injury to
her competitors through broken or
suspended organization This is not
all. The organization in many cases
has been not only broken or suspend
ed but the units which composed it
nave been slain. Bad as are the loss
OF the good will and disruption of
business, far worse is the loss of the
skilled hand and the trained mind.
Effect on Trade.
What the effect Of all these condi.
lions upon American international
trade is to be cannot be limited or de.
lined, but 1t would seem plain that
our resources are uudiminished. our
capital secure, cur labor safe, that we
are saving where others arc 1o,t,o |
tnat we are living where others are
dying, that with us the path is ,up.
ward, and with them Il is In a large |
measure downward it is certain that |
one result will be our own greater in.
dustrial independence.
1T seems clear to me that we do
our part we shall change our place
among the great competitors. The
world is never the economic gaipermt
me last analysis of war Tbofloaaoa