Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1916-12-14
SAM HAS ALL
TRADE ADVANTAGE
|AF TER WAR TIME

NORFOLK, va, Dec. 1.-THE Unit
ed States will enter competition for
the world trade after the war with
every advantage, said Secretary OF
Commerce Redfeld, speaking before
the Southern Commercial Congress.
There is the best reason for know
ing that in at least four important re-
spects the end Of the war will mean
calls on US for supplies which now we
are prevented from furnishing" said
Mr.. Redfield. These demands will be
for foodstuffs of many kinds. for agri-
cultural machinery, for lumber in
many forms and for credits in the way
of loans and Investments
Americas advantage will lie. said
the secretary, in the fact that her ad-
justment from war to peace condition
will not be SO severe as in the fighting
countries.
1t Is reasonable to suppose that
foreign industries as a whcle,' he said
will have to make sharper read
justment Of product from war goods
to peace goods than is to be the case
with us. Consider what manufac-
tdrer in one of the Central Powers
would face if he undertook to make
up goods for stock today on any CON
siderable scale for an export market.
He would manufacture at high rates
under war conditions, with higher
than normal costs. with some of his
trained supervising and working star
in the armies, and with every material
enhanced in price. perhaps with
some supply cut of.
This man must pile up goods so
made at time when credit is costly
and taxes are adcancing for a at a
future time which may be distant and
in markets whose current movements
he may not know and Of whose flu
ture conditions no one can tell him.
He may not be able to say whether
styles, designs. colors and dimensions
and other elements of the goods he
makes will suit when the unknown
day shall arrive when he can offer
them for sale. Nor will he know
whether in the interval industries
shall not have sprung up in the place
where he would sell, that viii make
the vending of his product there I'M
possible.
For a manufacturer under a condi-
ton Of this kind to pile up goods
would be almost an act Of industrial
insanity and certainly not one whose
existence on any considerable scale
should be thought q dangerous threat"
Economic alliances are formed, the
secretary declared, not as offensive
weapons but as defense.
These movements can not be look
cd upon as If they were weapons
backed by exceptional economic pow
er. On the contrary saner view is
to regard them as weapons forged to
overcome unusual economic weakness.
They are not the outcome Of develop
ing strength but Of increasing loss.
They are created to make the best of
q bad situation"
Economic alliances may come and
go; tariff policies may change; but
greater things than either viii deter
mine our place in the world" he con-
oiuded. g if we viii waste we cannot
win. If we condemn the scientific by
boastful adhesion to the so-caIled
which often means the ig
Lorant-we cannot win either. If we
pit unframed minds and hands against
those which have been skilfully taught
we cannot win. If we persist in ignor-
ing what it costs to do business we
cannot expect to cope with those who
are more intelligent. We cannot have
our places in the sun unless we de-
serve it.
IF I were asked the message which
at the end of thirty years connection
with industry / would leave as a
warning against danger, the sign post
for the future path, it would be:
Educate young people for the work
or the field; make industry the serv-
ant of science: know costs and the
causes Of costs; stop wasting.