The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-05-01
World of Finance
WAR AS 4 FACTOR IN THE
 PROSPERITY OF A NATION
(By Kingsley Moses in Interesting PubIic Service

(By Kingsley Moses in Interesting
 Public Service
 so accustomed have we become to swallowing the burblings or sol1- hearted-and perhaps equally soIt- headed-gentlemen anent the terrible destructiveness of war that the thought that war may not be wholly disastrous economically may come as a bit of a shock.
 It is. of course, true that the loss of human life Is very real and en- tirely irreparable loss; and this is the curse that can never be lifted from war SO long as the battles of man per sist. But when war is referred to as an absolute annihilator of industry commerce and trade, a debatable 1s- sue is immediately raised. Take. TOT instance, even the apparently huge loss involved in the explosion and ab- solute destruction of thousands and thousands of shells. How many mill lions of tons of metals have been forever lost to the supply of the world can probably never be estimated. This seems, to the devout exponent or efficiency. an unanswerable argu- ment: certainly the material is gone forever, scattered in tiny fragments over the ruined acres of hundred battlefields-
 But. wait a minute. For the man ufacture of. all these munitions hu- man labor must have been employed and paid. The percentage of the la Dor cost runs all the way from sixty to seventy-five per cent. Of the total cost of manufacture. Munitions man ufacturers of 1914 bear to the manu- factutres of 1916 the ratio of to 78- the figures are: in 1914, $6,272,197; in 1916. $467,081.928-or, in other words, labor was receiving last year about seventy-eight times as much pay for munitions manufacture as it was two years ago.
 Our Advantages of Isolation. It was an individual, Plutarch by name. who mentioned the fact some centuries ago that history repeated itself. And if we are to draw any conclusions from the past experiences of nations at war it may be well to examine these experiences with req sonably calm scrutiny. It is highly improbable that the war into which the United States now enters can by any possibility prove half so serious as was our own Civll War. We are not even remotely i threatened by foreign invasion. The 1 North had foes at the very borders of the District of Columbia, the most de- |, yastating battle of the affray was wag- ed at Gettysburg, on Northern soil, Germany, on the other hand. lies a long three thousand miles away and a considerable body of water and a no less considerable British fleet lies be- tween. We are, as has been said, in much the same position as Canada or Japan so far as possibility of territor- rial invasion goes. And in this connec- ton 1t is interesting to note that, al l though almost three years of active war have passed by, both Japan and Canada are better off fiancially thar i ever before in their history.
 Before the Civil War the United 1 States had funded debt of $64,769,. | 70s; ,at the close of the war that deb had risen to about $3,000, 100000 Yet I in spite of the heavy impoverishmen1 1 of the South, the economic wealth ol /. the country had, within five years af' ter the close of the war, risen at leas ! five billion dollars. And 1t is to lbt remembered that the United State: { was obliged to shoulder the misfor' tune of the South, while, under. nc conceivable form of treaty, would th' United States be liable for the misfor , tune of defeated and hostile Euro l pean country. Further, in 1891, ol ! within about twenty-six years aftel l the close of the war, the funded deb of the country had been cut in half i while, meantime, the total economi' wealth had been increased amazingl.
 ts War and Bull Market.
 sFFom June, 1861, until April, 1864 the market enjoyed an almost contin 1 uous bull movement, with bond price moving parallel to stocks with on1. | slight variations; and between tn two years of '62 and '64 bond price
 continued to respond regularly to bil war profits and to the natural demand 1 for investment. Gold reached 1t
 highest price in July, 1864, at 285.
 Then, for a little over two years period which saw the close of tn war, the assassination of Presiden Lincoln, the general unrest of the frs misguided efforts at reconstruction and an unsettled condition in the Lon don market, there was decide
 heaviness apparent in all securities
 though at no time did this heavines even border upon serious depression
 But about the middle of the year 186
 a decided upward movement of tn
 market evidenced itself again and con
 tinued strongly for fully six year,
 six years. '"The history of this period,
 says one financial authority, "empha
 sizes the great power of industry, in
 cidental to the reconstruction of ou
 national business, over the prosper ity of the country and the course c
 the bond market; for bonds main
 tained their upward course, and gen
 eral business continued to expand
 face of long series of disturbin events" We who have been accue
 toned to a real panic every six c
 seven years in times of peace ma
 well take note of the complete ab
 sence of any condition even az preaching panic during the four year
 of actual warfare and the six year immediately succeeding.
 Contrast With Europe.
 Certain unhappy pessimists have an
 ticipated with apprehension and view
 cd with disnay--as ourkcampaign or
 ators exclaim-the proposal that tn
 United States raise immediately a wa
 loan of about seven billion dollars ]
 Is indeed stupendous sum, a sur
 not to be secured without very req
 and active effort. But contrast tn
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