The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1919-07-18
Political and Economic
Conditions in Europe

d
Let me picture pair of balances,
into one scale-pan of which you will
put all the things that a nation must
have--in Italy, coal and cotton; in
France, cotton and wool and most of
the metals. Let us put in the other
pan everything that nation has to
export. Well, obviously at the mo-
ment, these nations wanting every
thing--industry disorganized, and
nothing to send out.-our scales are
out of balance What can be done ?
We cannot take anything out of the
pan containing the nations necessi-
ties, because presumably we have re-
duced these imports as low as they
can go and have the nation live. Put
more in the other pan, representing
the nations exports? But you can
not put more in if your industries are
paralyzed. What other way is there
to balance this? And it must be bal
anced, else the things cannot be had
that are essential to the nations life.
Well, normally we would put gold in
there, but, of course, now there is no
gold that these countries can spare.
What else can we put in? Credit
that is the one thing. There are just
three things that will go into this bal
ance to balance these necessary things
that the nation must have-goods,
gold, credit. So right on the thresh-
old a manufacturer needs a foreign
credit. He must have foreign credit
if his raw material is to come from
abroad. Now, what are some of the
other things that are difficult. He
is facing a wage situation in which
the wages of pre-war days have been
doubled or tripled. He is in a cur
rency situation that is chaotic. Some
of these nations have variety Of cur
rency at the present time that is al
most laughable, except that it is hor-
ribly serious.
Poland's Currency Troubles
Take the situation of Poland, for
example, and Poland was great man.
ufacturing district about Warsaw.
When the present Government was
formed, this country, made out of
piece Of Russia, piece of Germany,
and piece of Austria, had first a
currency of the old Gar rubles, of
the Kerensky rubles, of the Bolshevik
rubles, and counterfeits of the Gar
rubles and the Kerensky rubles. Then
there were German marks, and an is
sue of marks that Germany forced
the Warsaw district to make, and then,
worth least of ALL perhaps, were the
Austrian crowns with ree-eights of
one per cent of gold back of them.
That Government had to consolidate
in some way this terrific mass of cur
rency, and the difficulties that this has
thrown upon getting things started
would in themselves be almost enough
to bring about the paralysis that is
found there.
Money Difficulties in England, France
and Belgium.
The currency in other countries,
while hot quite so Intricate, is almost
equally involved. In France there
were a little less than 100000, 900
bank notes which formed the nations
currency prior to the war. Today
there are 36,000,000 900 francs of notes
of the Bank of France. Now 10000
100000 francs of paper money is
sum so vast that you can hardly grasp
it. Its effect has been greatly to en-
nance prices. England itself has an
enormous issue of what is practically
fiat money-about billion and half
dollars, | believe it is. These curren-
cy notes are secured by a compare
lively small amount of gold-about
28,000,000 pounds sterling. In Bel
GUM the Germans forced bank to
make a great issue of notes. 1t
flooded the country with marks, and
when the Belgian Government came
back they had to take those marks up.
They had to issue their own notes, or,
in part, bonds against the marks.
About 5000, 100000 marks were so
taken up. When France got Alsace-
Lorraine she also got about 100000
900 marks along with it, and had to
redeem them. 1t cost France a dill
lion dollars in her bank note currency
which she put out at 1.25 for the mark
in franc. So the currency situation
makes great difficulty.
Thousands Literally Starving
Then there is another paralysis that
affects every manufacturer, that eff
fects the whole life of Europe more
than you can imagine-the paralysis
of domestic railway transportation.
In some parts of Europe that has be-
come extremely serious. Mr.. Hoover
told me that the breakdown in trans
portation in Central Europe, in the
countries east of Germany, was so Sc
rious that there was bound to be
starvation of hundreds of thousands
of people simply because the food
could not be moved. If ports were
full Of food there would still be many,
many, many thousands of people
starving. Starving people! Do you
know they really starve to death by
hundreds of thousands? 1t is long
way off. We don't get it. We don't
understand it. 1t is sort Of ora
torical expression-that people are
starving. But it's true, only too lit
terally and terribly true!
In Austria, in Czechoslovakia, in
much of the Balkan country, the starv-
alton has been appalling, and will con-
t;nue to be appalling, and people will
face a year from now a food situa-
ton worse than they have faced this
spring, and l say that on the highest
possible authority. Why is that?
Because Russia has ceased to be
producer for export, because Ruma-