The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1916-02-04
Americas Boom Is In Primary
Class As Compared With
Scandinavian
from fridays Dai1u.
| CHARLES p. STEWART, UNITED
PRESS CORRESPONDENT.

| PRESS CORRESPONDENTS.
| Copenhagen, January Shy MALL
| Scandinavia is enjoying tremendous
| war boom. It is more or less COM
! mon to Sweden, Denmark and Nor
way, but SO far as appearances go,
! it is most pronounced in Norway,
| Sweden has sold to the belligerents,
especially to Germany, immense
/ amounts of raw and finished products,
| including war munitions, though these
! latter sales were not countenanced by
| the Swedish government. Denmark,
| being separated from Germany only
| by an imaginary line instead of a
stretch of mined and dangerous wa
| ter has done still better. The lions
share of the war business, however,
| has gone to Norway.
The Norwegians have profited, to
some extent, like Sweden and Dem
| mark, by sales of their own goods to
| the belligerent nations, especially to
Germany, but it has been as middle
men that the bulk of their business
has been done. Norway was the
worlds third marine nation when the
war broke out England ranked first,
| Germany second England still ranks
| first but even the British merchantile
| marine has suffered heavily from the
| destruction Incidental to war Ger
manys merchant shipping has been
out of commission altogether since
the early days of hostilities. This
| was Norway's chance.
War Boom Here Small Affair.
Compared with Norway Americas
war boom has been a small affair.
This is speaking relatively. of course.
In actual dollars and cents the Eu
ropean struggle unquestionably has
brought more money to the United
States than to any other country.
Comparatively Norway has been the
big gamer. That is, the Norwegians
are richer by the struggle to the eX
tent of about S200,0GO,000 in actual
lash thus far To properties they al
ready owned there has been added
value of approximately as much
more. This is on a basis Of a popu-
! lation of 100000.
An addition of $50 per capita to
Norway's wealth in a year and half
has been felt emphatically. 1t has
meant a boom such as the old world
has not seen hitherto in historic
times. Millionaires. have been created
wholesale. Many of them are million
aires only in kroner-a krona being
in the neighborhood of 81 cents-but
jump from nothing, in eighteen
months, to a fortune of $250,000 to
100000, which has happened in hun
dreds of cases, is not so bad. The
big old shipping firms have profited
in actual millions of dollars. The
newly made millionaires in Norwe-
gian money are mainly mere clerks in
shipping houses, or working officers
of ocean going craft who were able
to command. a little credit and
branched out in business for them
selves.
Had Never Owned Ship.
Numbers of the newly made mag
mates have never owned a ship. They
have bought vessels in course of con-
struction or invested merely in char
tiers and have been able to transfer
either their unfinished craft or their
charters, SO rapid was the increase in
the demand for bottoms at huge adj
vances, sometimes in the course of no
| more than a few days. War taxes
have been high, but profits have been
so much higher that the taxes have
hardly been felt The NOrwegians
count on being the worlds second
maritime power when the war ends.
Only England they believe, will lead
them. Neither do they believe their
boom will burst with the struggles
end.
Shipbuilding, with the exception of
warships has been practically at a
standstill since fighting began, they
point out. This means, they say, that
the supply of vessels has not been
kept up in proportion to the worlds
increasing demand. More than this,
emphasis is laid on the fact that there
has been, first and last, heavy de-
struction of ocean going craft by
mines and submarines, adding great
ly to the shortage the world already
feels and will feel still more keenly
with the Post-bellum revival of in
ternational trade
Ships are Decaying.
Finally, it is argued that the ships
| which have simply been laid up in
| port because they dared not sail the
seas, are slowly deteriorating from dis
use and will be more and more near
| ly worthless the longer the war lasts.
| 1t will take years, the Norwegians
| maintain, to restore an equality be-
tween the supply and demand for
| ships for purely commercial pur-
| poses.
During all these years Norway eX
poets to continue gathering in huge
profits, dwindling, perhaps, as time
progresses, but gradually reaching a
satisfactory normal without any vio-
lent shock and with the Norwegians
| finally the worlds second nation as
traders on the, seas. The recent in
f1uX of cash money has had its effect
in all lines. The shipping trade has
felt it most but mining, manufacture
and other lines of industry have been
enormously stimulated. An average
of big new development company
daily is fioated in Christiania. Indus
trially the Scandinavian countries
have been kept back by an made
quate fuel supply. Development of
the Spitzbergen coal mines has been
begun with the new capital furnished
by the belligerents, on a large scale.
Where Coal Is Mined.
Spit2bergen, which seems in the
United States like almost the last
place ON earth, is mentioned in
x,-ara No ,,,ora ~,