The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-07-28

TELEPHONE, BEEkAAN ZxOO.
When the World Trade War Begins
for Our Gold.
Our recent trade relation with the
outside world beggars description. In
the single month Of June we exported
goods to the value Of $91s, 0O0000. You
may roughly picture but you cannot
fully comprehend what this means by
merely making a bald mathematical
comparison. Two generations ago, for
example, our exports had already be-
come vast, challenging the worlds ex-
port leadership. And yet up to 1897
there had never been a whole year In
which this country had shipped abroad
the goods, measured in dollars, which
1t shipped in the single month Of last
June. Until almost the outbreak of
the war there never was a whole year
IN which the value of our exports was
much more than twice the value Of
our exports in the single month of
last June.
Again: In June the balance Of
trade In our favor was $685., 900, 900.
But up to the first year of the very
war itself there had been only two
! years-1913 and 1901-when our
whole annual balance of trade was as
great as our balance of trade in this
single month Of June, 1919.
Once more: With this month Of
June ended our fiscal year of 1919.
Not only were our exports in the
year seven and a quarter billions of
dollars, but our balance Of trade was
more, by $4,000, 900. than four bill
Ions of dollars. In the war fiscal
years Of 1915. 1915. 1917. 1918 and
1919 our exports were upwards Of
twenty-seven billions of dollars. The
balance Of trade in our favor for these
same years was, in round numbers,
fifteen billions of dollars.
This Is why London exchange, Ca.
madam exchange, French exchange,
pretty much all European exchange Is
terrifcally and, in the soundest analy-
sis, dangerously in favor of the
United States. It Is why the product
Of the Transvaal gold mining COM
panies, which have been under obliga-
ton to sell their metal only to the
Bank Of England, has just been re-
leased for sale henceforth wherever
the producing companies wish to send
1t. 1t Is why. If this tide could run
much longer as IL has been running,
there would be no gold, there would
be no credit, there would be no for
eign buying power left anywhere else
in the greater part Of the world.
/ We should be very foolish to imagine
that If the outside world went on
owing us, on trade count alone, a new
5000, 100000 every month, we should
soon get paid for any of it or ever get
paid for some of 1t. We should be
very foolish to imagine either that
new credit, whether expressed In hun
dreds of millions or In billions of dol
lars, set up for our foreign customers
could last very long at this rate of
5000. 600, 900 a month and four billions
Of dollars a year, or that we should
ever get 1t back. We should be very
foolish to imagine that when an indi-
vidual or a group Of individuals, or a
nation or a group Of nations, is more
deeply and hopelessly In debt than can
be cleaned up, burying any and all of
them still more deeply and hopelessly
in debt will clean them up.
But acknowledgements for us
no less than for Europe-our debtor
customers are not going to continue
buying from us as they have bought;
they cannot. We are not going to
continue to sell to them as we have
been selling; we cannot.
For the moment-until they have
more food to eat, more clothes tn
wear and more tools with which to
work-the people Of Europe will try,
will try desperately, to go on buying
from US. The last remnant of sal
able securities will be thrown into
our market. The last ounce Of gold
that can be spared will be thrown in.
The family spoons on the table, so to
speak. will be thrown in. But this
will be done only to enable these I'm
poverished, these needful. these fam
ished peoples and nations to begin
TO buy back their credit. buy back
their gold. buy back their securities,
buy back their trade.
When all the vernacular "valuables"
of the world are here In the United
States all the world is going to come
after these "valuables"-frst of all