Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1916-11-01
John Barrett Finds Opinion
in France and England
Friendly to U. s,
WAR TO CONTINUE
AT LEAST A YEAR
Majority European Officials and Bust.
ness Expect Conflict Will Extend Far
Into 1918, Perhaps Longer, Says
Pan.American Union Head.

Washington, Oct. 31---In an advance
statement issued today, John Barrett,
director general of the Pan American
union, who has rec emily returned
from special trip to England and
France to study the European view
point of the Influence of the war
upon pan American commerce, gives
a summary of the report which he
has prepared. While abroad he con-
ferred with leading officials and rep
resentative financiers and manufac-
turers connedted with foreign trade,
being afforded every facility in his
Investigations by both government
and private interests. BY invitation
of the British and French authorities
he also spent week at the battle
front in France, from Verdun to the
Somme. The report also reaches the
following conclusion Of concern to the
commercial and financial interests OF
the United tSates and Latin Amerid,.
1. Not government official,
banker or general business man, or
any army officer, would express a
positive opinion as TO the duration or
end Of the war. except that the ma
jority plainly believed that it would
last we'll into 1918 or even longer.
2. A most powerful semi-official
organization and. movement has been
quietly but effectively started in both
England and France, not only to make
now an extraordinary effort to main
tain their present trade with the
Americas and regain what may have
been lost during the first two years
of the war, but to prepare ahead for
greater effort after the war m
building up this trade than they ever
made before.
3. Under conditions which amount
to encouragement and almost 20
actual government aid, Large variety
OF industries heretofore little develop
ed, and hence figuring slightly in the
foreign trade of these dountries. is
being rapidly developed and will sure
ly play a prominent part in their
future commerce and in competition
with the United States and other
countries.
4. A vast practical army of very
skilled but reasonably paid labor IS
being trained anu developed all over
Great Britain and France in the form
/ Oh WOUlcu WOAhSfo. WIN WA AAA~N SeAo~'
! immensely the efficiency of manu-
facture and the volume of output #
! foreign commerce despite the loss OF
male and skilled labor resulting from
| the war.
). Notwithstanding the extraordi-
nary financial burdens of the war,
the British and French financial and
commercial interests. recognizing the
plainly injurious effect upon their
foreign commerce of their present
! withdrawal from financing govern
ment loans and private undertakings
in Latin America and that the United
States is rapidly supplanting them in
this respect, are now planning to CO.
operate in caring for this field In the
future as they have done in the past
IS. Everywhere, however, in both
official and private circles, there is
not only an expressed belief thai
there is abundant room in South an4
Central America for the financial
and commercial efforts both of the
United States and Of England and
France but a sincere desire to CO.
operate as far as possible with the
commercial and financial interests o1
the United tSates in order to avoid a
ruinous competition that would DC
harmful to all concerned. Everywhere
moreover, strange as il may seem
there is decided optimism rather than