The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-02-24
Net Profits of American In stitutiOns Were Actually
 Greater Last Year
WAR HAS FASTENED
 GAINS OF AMERICA
No One Except DemagOgues Now Elk press Fear of the Increasing Deposits in the New York
 Banking Houses
By HOLLAND

New York. February 2S.-(Special,)-I compilation which was made few oays ago by the Wall Street Journal of statls- +ics which reveal the relative standing of the leading banks of New York as compared with those of London is regard ed as furnishing one of the strongest Droofs of the rapid change in the position of New York with respect to the leao- ing money center of the world
 The record of our foreign trade which last year was the greatest any country has ever carried on, and, furthermore the record of our advances to other ha- tions, $1. 900, 100000 of which was in funds or credits and $1,5O0 ,O0O,000 in the pur- chase of American securities which had been for long time held abroad, were In a general way evidences of the momen- tous change that has occurred since Au- gust. 1914 It is without parallel in the history of civilized nations, and the fact that the conditions created by it have been on the whole well met and handled by the bankers not only of New York, but of the entire country, is sometimes alluded to as the best proof of the pre- diction that we shall be able to handle any exigencies or conditions which may appear after the European war is ended.
 Yet after all, perhaps the best single and complete illustration of thls change is furnished by the fig lires compiled by the Wall Street Journal At the beginning of the year 1916, the New York banks have attained position which two or three of the foremost bank ing authorities of London ventured some years ago to say we might attain after a generations time had passed. These bankers of London based their view upon the fact that of a sudden there had been an unexpected development of our eX- port trade in manufactured commodities. Sir Felix Schuster-esteemed as without superior as financial authority in Lon don-Was perhaps the first of the Lon don bankers to discover that our exports of manufactured commodities were like Iy in the course of a few years to equal in money value our exports of agricul- tural commodities. Another banking au- thority of London returned from a visit to the United States, made some 10 years ago. and at the first opportunity gave his associates in the London banking world words of monition because he in timated that suddenly it might be dis covered that the United States was be- coming a rival of Great Britain in the marketing of manufactured commodities. He was inclined to think that within a few years there would be disclosed a fact which 10 years earlier no one would have dreamed was possible-namely, that the prestige of the United States as an exporter of agricultural products was to be surpassed by her prestige as an ex- porter of manufactured commodities. In time this would surely, he intimated, vastly increase the resources and finan- cial strength of the banks of the United States, and particularly those of New York
 IT CAME OF A SUDDEN
 Now the Wall Street Journal shows that condition which was vaguely and faintly predicted as something that might be established in the United States when third of the present century had gone has actually taken place within a year and a half.
 If there be set side by side two tables,