Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-07-07
EUROPE REBORN IN THE
TRAVAIL OF WAR \

AN IMPRESSION prevails in Congress
n and elsewhere that the warning ma.
tions will be like the two farmers in the
story who quarreled about their line fence.
They took their case into court and
fought with such persistence that when
the final decision was handed down the
lawyers owned the farms and the litigants
went to the poorhouse.
Those who are aware of what Is going
on In Europe know that this is mistaken
view II the lawyers had been the sons
of the farmers the analogy would be about
as complete as such things usually are
There would have been a change in the
ownership of the farms, but the property
would still have beeh in the family.
AS a matter of fact all the obtainable
evidence supports the assumption that
the belligerents, with the possible excep-
ton of Belgium and Serbia will find them
selves economically in about the same
shape as before the war began. Some
students of the situation insist that they
will be in better shape. 1t may be true
that the nations 500 years hence will still
be paying interest on the war debts, but
1t is certainly true II liquidation is not
accomplished sooner that the men living
500 years hence will be receiving the in
terest and using it In their business as
the men who lent the money in the first
place are now receiving 1t. The immense
loans are really little more than a capt.
talizatlon of the labor and production
as the war goes on. That is, the nations
are producing the commodities used and
the producers are accepting payment In
bonds and the money to meet the interest
instalments Is raised by a tax on the
profits of the producers. The financing
of the war is merely a problem in the
organization of industry.
Enormous quantities of ammunition
and guns and automobiles and horses and
such things are being destroyed without
any productive return. This is what the
economists call waste, just as money
spent on needless luxuries Is wasted But |
there are compensations. The war has
produced an industrial revolution, old |
methods have had to give place to new |
and more efficient processes, invention |
has been stimulated. The economic waste |
Of times of peace is being curtaied, and |
the workers are being schooled so thor
oughly in the arts of efficiency that they
will not forget what they have learned
when the armies lay down their arms.
who has given as much
thought to the subject as any other living
man, is responsible for the statement
that these improvements in industrial
when combined with the saving
from the effective control of the
liquor traffic, will fully compensate Great
Britain for all the destruction of property
in battle.
But even II necessity had not compelled
a speeding up of manufacturing processes,
the stimulus to trade arising from the
of vast sums for war would
lions from bankruptcy. We know what
he war has done to the United States.
When 1t began business was stagnant but
var orders have saved us from disaster.
There is job for every man willing to
work. Great fortunes have been made
,y the munitions manufacturers and all
METAL workers have prospered. The Will
nington powder fortunes and the phenom-
,nal rise in price of Bethlehem Steel
shares are examples of what has hap
oened here. Yet only a small fraction
II the money spent for war supplies has
,ome to the United States. What has
oeen happening in Wilmington on a
mall scale has been happening in Eng.
and and France and Germany at whole.
ale British trade has recovered from
he first shock of the war so splendidly
hat the value of the exports for May of
his year is much greater than the value
4 the exports for the same month in 1914.
III the English Industrial plants are in
act and in better shape for production n
Vhen peace comes than when the war
tarted. The same is true OF the German q
lants. Only small part of France has I
cen put out OF Industrial commission by G
he invasion Of German troops.
The United States has more than
lere kindly interest in the fact that war
not pauperizing Europe. We must
in the markets OF the world and
4 our own markets with the new indus.
rial efficiency produced out Of the neces.
tiles of the struggle for self-preserva-
on that is going on. The Allies have al
eady entered into an agreement to pro-
sct their own trade against the Central
mplres when peace comes, We shall -,
, subject to the fercest commercial rival
= ever known. not only for the neutral
larksts but for our own trade here at "
ONE. The moral OF all this is so obvious 3
lat every one but the unmitigated and !,
free trader can see It as
ainly as though 1t were written in let ;
rs OF fire on the sky.
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