The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-02-18
Example of the StupendOus Revenue Now Coming In
 to Industrial Companies
MANY, HOWEVER, FEAR ELEMENT OF DANGER
Some of the Munitions Makers May Expand Plants and Then Find the Market Suddenly
 Cease
By HOLLAND

New York; February 17.-(Special)-I was the phenomenal amount of the ac
 tual cash reported on the first of January as the deposit of the United States Stee
 corporation in banks that caused com
 ment that is not yet ended. For this cor.
 poration was reported to have in the banks H05, ,0O0,0O0 in cash There are sev.
 eral points of view from which this an nouncement can be taken. One is that ot men of large financing who say that the
 business which this corporation did in the F months preceding January 1 of this year. most of it in about eight months,
 of itself explains the possession of a large amount of cash on hand.
 Then, again, exporters of commodities which are bought of the United States Steel corporation say that they are com | pelled to pay what is substantially spot cash for these purchases, and as there have been very large amounts of the Steel company's commodities bought and exported there must have been core spondingly large increase in the cash possessed by the company.
 Some who should know say that it ia only the magnitude and not the fact that this Steel corporation has many millions of cash on hand which distinguishes it's condition-so far as this corporation is concerned-from other industrial corpor ations The probabilities are that ma jority of them-certainly a majority of those that are manufacturing and selling equipments and munitions of war-were able to contemplate on January 1 bank deposits made by them far in excess of any deposits made by them in earlier years.
 Presumably the cash on hand of the Bethlehem Steel company is relatively as large as that of the Steel corporation. One of the industries which only two years ago was obliged to turn to its sur plus so that it might not be seriously em- barrassed reported few days ago that it had cash on deposit of approximately s1 ,500,O0O. and in addition to that it had in it's treasury about sS0O,O00 worth of bonds, all of which had been bought out of re- cent earnings.
 LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE
 One of the serious problems which the managers of our large industries are now studying relates to the expansion of the plants Any of the competent managers of the large industries will say, if asked, that this is one of the most difficult questions to answer. The temptatlon IS now strong to invest large capital in inn provements and expansion of plants. And vet if this be done it may be found after the European war is ended that these plants are practically useless, and instead of representing wealth earning capacity have, in fact, the opposite effect. Expan- sions of that kind were one of the causes for the demoralized business situation F or 14 years ago.
 Still the reasons are good for presum- ing that demand upon our industries wlii continue after the war is ended, al though it will be a demand of dlffer- ent kind from that which the American manufacturers are now meeting. There prevails an opinion that the government at Washington is sure to be heavy pur- chaser of munitions and equipments or war not because we are in any danger or war. but because if there is to be real preparation for defense that involves the possession of adequate amounts of munl- tions and equipment of war.