The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-07-20
THE EFFECT OF WAR ORDERS

We could only manufacture and sell in 1915 explosives of the money value of $4,- GOO, 900, but few months later our indus tries were able to catch up with the great orders so that in the fiscal year just ended they exported explosives of the money value of s473,O0O,OOO. That is an enormous increase within two years, for in 1914 the explosives we exported were of the money value of only $6 000,0O0.
 The effect of the war is clearly demon strated in the money value of our raw cotton exports. It was only S376, 900. Some years ago James Stillman is re- ported to have said that our exports of raw cotton of that year would be found, in his opinion, to be about equal to our favorable trade balance, $500, 10000. The event proved the truth of that statement. There were two curious features con tained in this report of the years trade, for while wheat and flour fell off as com pared with the preceding year, the money value of their export being $3140O 900, on the other hand, meat increased, the money value of this commodity being $27G, ,0O0,000
 After all the details that are most sig nificant are those which tell the charac- teristics of our imports. When the un- dersea vessel from Germany delivered at Baltimore a considerable cargo of dye stuff. it was noticed in the Wall street
  vorably to affect the market, although this may not have been the fact, but there were some authorities who spoke of the incident as something which indi- ceted the magnitude of the dumping upon the United States of foreign manufac- tured articles after the European war is ended.
 Nevertheless imports which were of the aggregate money value of $2,1S0. 00,O00 are regarded by the best judges as encour- aging and not anything to justify appre- hension, for the American manufacturers need great deal of raw material They will be unable to meet the heavy de- mands which are expected after the close of the war unless they have raw material in abundance, and that, too, at a time 1t cannot be produced in the United States.
 The largest item in our imports is sugar. there having been imported $206,- O0G,OOO worth of it. That is a raw ma terial and we must always import much the greater part of the raw sugar which we refine. Rubber is raw material of the utmost importance to American manufacturers. How great that impor- tance is is made evident by the fact that in the fiscal year just ended we imported rubber of the value of GOO or not quite twice as much as we imported the year before. Our manufacturers say that we were fortunate to secure so much rub 
 and other articles into which hides and skins enter brought into the United States commodities of this kind the noney value of which was almost exactly equal to the money value of the rubber. and was $50,00O,0OO more than the money value of hides and skins imported the previous year. We need great deal of wool, and our imports of the past fis- cal year were in money value double what they were the previous year. We paid foreign nations 45.0OO.000 for wool, and we paid foreign nations $122, GOO for raw silk, an increase of $40.000, 900. We also paid s10S, ,O00,Ooo for chemicals, nearly S25.00o,000 more than we paid in the previous year. These were importa- tions that were a benefit. They enter into our manufacture. Besides, the best judges hope that our imports will in crease, for in that way it will be easier for other nations to pay the heavy bill they owe the United States for com modities for this year.