The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1916-01-31

tent of about $2o0,0oO,oOO in actual
cash thus far. To properties they al
ready owned there has been added
value of approximately as much more
This is on basis of population of
| 2,500,O0O.
An addition of $50 per capita to
| Norway's wealth in year and half
has been felt emphatically. 1t has
meant boom such as the old world
| has not seen hitherto in historic
, times. Millionaires have been created
wholesale Many of them are mil
lionaires only in kroner-a krona
being in the neighborhood of 81 cents
but jump from nothing, in eigh-
teen months, to fortune of $3.50, 900
to $270,000, which has happened in
hundreds of cases, is not so bad. The
big old shipping firms have profited
in actual millions of dollars. The
newly made millionaires in Norwe-
CLAN money are mainly mere clerks
in shipping houses, or working Off
GERS of ocean going craft who were
able to command a little credit and
branched out in business for them
selves.
Numbers of the newly-made mag
mates have never owned 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 ad-
vances, sometimes in the course of
no more than few days. War taxes
have been high, but profits have been
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. Z.
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,
mphasis is laid on the fact that there
has been, first and last, heavy de-
struction of ocean-g ding craft by mines
and submarines, adding greatly to the
shortage the world already feels and
will feel still more keenly with the
post-bellum revival of international
trade.
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 disuse
and will be more and more nearly
worthless the longer the war lasts. 1t
will take years, the Norwegians main
tain, to restore an equality between
the supply and demand for ships for
purely commercial purposes
During all these years Norway ex-
poets to continue gathering In huge
profits, dwindling, perhaps, as time
progresses. but gradually reaching a
normal. without any vio- |
lent shock and with the Norwegians |
finally the worlds second nation as
traders on the seas. The recent in
fux of cash money has had its erect |
In all lines. The shipping trade has |
felt 1t most, but mining, manufacture !
and every other line of industry has |
been enormously stimulated. An aver
age of big new development company |
daily is floated in Christiania. Indus
trially the Scandinavian countries |
have been kept back by an inadequate
fuel supply Development Of the |
Spitzbergen coal mines has been be.
gun with the new capital furnished |
by the belngerents, on large scale.
Spitzbergen, which seems In the
United States like almost the last
place on earth, is mentioned in Chris
tiania as If 1t were no more remote
than Alaska seems to Seattle. The
coal mined there is declared to be the
best quality b1tuminous and with 1t
the Norwegians speak of making their
country, in the near future, one Of the
biggest manufacturing nations of the
world
Has the Norwegian workin gman re-
ceived a fair share of the war profits?
@-6 rrg ~ &