The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-08-02
RARE CASE.

New York, August 1.-(Special.)-One of the executive officers or the Na- tional City bank recently made an es- innate of the wealth of the United States expressed in terms of dollars and fixed the aggregate at $24o. ,o0o0oO.
 That figure is about $10,0O0 100000 less
 than another estimate made by an equally good authority. Of course, esti- mates of this kind are likely to be some
 what misleading. They involve occa- sional duplication exactly as estimates of bank deposits for any one city repre- sent Implications and sometimes tripli- cations. Furthermore, 1t would be inter- esting to know whether this money value of our wealth represents both de- veloped and undeveloped resources. Pre- sumably the undeveloped resourcs of the country are not included, or at least are only partially accounted for in the esti- mate. The resources of the United
 States which are awaiting exploitation
 must be in money value vastly in excess
 of $25O, GOO, 100000.
 Undoubtedly this estimate was made
 public at this time so that htere could
 be good understanding by the people of
 the somewhat trivial relation of the $17,
 OO0,000,0OO which is the estimated expen-
 diture by the United States in the first
 year of the war, to the total wealth of
 the United States Presumably the war
 will not be continued longer than two
 or three years and if the yearly expendi-
 lures should be equal to that incurred
 in the first year of the war, or even
 s2o, ,OOO,0oO,OOO.
 Undoubtedly this estimate was made public at this time SO that there could be good understanding by the people of the somewhat trivial relation of the ST. COG, 100000 which Is the estimated expen-
 diture by the United States in the first year of the war, to the total wealth of tho United States. Presumably the war will not be continued longer than two or three years and if the yearly expen- ditures should be equal to that incurred in the first year of the war, or even $20,- GOO O00, 000 then in three years our expen- ditures on account of the war would be little under $60, ,OO0, 100000 or only 25 per cent of the estimated wealth of the United States. In addition there Is an other point of view, and that is to be found in the fact that no small part of | the expenditures on account of the war will be reflected in increased manufac- | lures and larger agricultural industry 1 and in expansion of our foreign com merce. It would be interesting to men if nance to know accurately what the az gregate yearly income of the people of 1 tho United States is. It must be vastly | in excess of the amount needed to carry | way of reaching a conclusion which can | be relied upon which would show the | on the war, but there Is no conceivable aggregate of this income.
 | In the early spring Otto H. Kahn de- | livered an address before a body of highly cultivated men in this city | in which he set forth some of 1 his views of what the relation | of business to the war should be- He spoke of the policy adopted by Congress | in taxing incomes, intimating that if the | Income tax were too high 1t would nec-
 essarily be followed by falling off in | the report to tax collectors of the amount of income. He also spoke of the l ability with which Canada has been | financing her end of the war, deeming | it a remarkable thing wen worthy of the | heed of American law makers that the | Canadian government had not imposed 1 any Dominion income tax. There l seemed to be an intimation In MT.
 Kahn's remarks that Canada might in