The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-02-25
Good Times Ahead

Good Times Ahead
The New York Times in careful analysis o
factors entering into national prosperity see
nothing but prosperity ahead A study of it
finding will remove pessimism and give fresl
outlook on affairs. Says the editorial:
During the last few days the security markets
have been buoyant, while the commodity market
have continued moderate, orderly decline. Tht
movements are logical not contradictory. Stocks
rise on the prospect Of profits. Commodities fal
on the prospect Of lower costs. Both movements
ara prophetic. The saying that the wheel does
not grind with the water which has passed ovel
it applied particularly to calamity news. There
is nothing alarming or depressing in the bad news
of the past years of terror and destruction. That
lies behind The future must be better, not only
by comparison with the war conditions, but by
comparison with the best before the war. We are
not on the crest of prosperity. Rather we are
rising from the depth of calamity.
1t is true that the world never witnessed such
destruction of capital But it is also true that it
never witnessed such increased capacity OF pro-
duction. The latter is more important. The de-
struction was temporary and has stopped, while
the increase of production is as permanent as we
choose to make it, under the stimulus of world
wants and American capacity to supply them.
The world lacks food and clothes and materials
to supply every want, to total of uncounted
billions. Here only is plenty in goods and capa-
city of quick production. Every consideration
Of neighbory duty and self-interest constrains
us to remove the obstacles in the way of bring
ing foreign buyers and our sellers together.
It is not practicable to assemble all the facts
in support of this statement of conditions. Only
the broadest outline can be filled in here. The
great bank cearings attest the activity Of trade.
The suggestion that the volume Is in prices
rather than in goods is negatived by the tonnage
passing over the railways. Never was there such
a valume of business, and never sounder condi-
tons among traders, as the fewness of insolven-
cies proves. The largest foreign trade of 1918
was in it's last month, and the first month of 1919
registered above any other month in all time.
The trade of January put the world in our debt
$410,O000OO, against S470,000,O0O for the entire
fiscal year 1914.
Undeniably food is dear, but wages are high
and give no sign Of immediate fall. They need
never fall if labor will earn them. High wages
and cheap living are contradiction only SEEM
ingly. They are reconciled by quantity produc-
ton, capable of Unreasonable increase if labor
and capital meet with open hands rather than
with clenched fists. That must pass here as an
assertion, but the argument in its support will
be found in the article in The Times Sunday Mag
azine today by large employer of labor, whose
practice has proved it.
No true picture is without shadows, but the
shadows only prove that there is sunshine. Liv-
ing is too high for many, even with high wages.
But the high prices have caused such accumula-
ton of goods that it is almost scandal We
have taken from the soil in the last year more
money than we have raised in Liberty bonds,
and we are almost dreading the bounty of next
years harvest. How shall we pay for it. or store
it, or move it from the farms? Never was there
in sight such total of living slaughtered food
animals, although never did any people reap such
profit from the sale of them. There is so much
cotton that the planters are planning to restrict
production. Once we were to be ruined by Chinese
cheap labor. Now seem to think that we are
cursed by abundance.
That is not rue because foreign needs are
greater than domestic supplies. The problem OF
bringing them together is far from insoluble. A
Produce Exchange meeting of the trade last week
BOlSheviki in