The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-06-07
HARDING SOUNDS
 CONFIDENT NOTE
By HOLLAND

By HOLLAND
 New York, June 6-(SpeciaL Unto an | article which can be read in 10 minutes, w. p. G. Harding, governor of the fed eral reserve board at Washington, has competed statement of facts and the conclusions to be drawn from them which should give encouragement to those
 who have been somewhat disturbed by the depressing address which was recently made by Frank A. Vanderlip to the Eco-
 homie club.
 From the time of MT. Harding's ap- pointment as one of the original mem
 bers of the federal reserve board at Wash l ington he has occasionally delivered ad- dresses, especially in the dark days of l the war, which have served to enlighten ', the people and to give encoura cement that
 out of anxieties and depression would
 come hope and prosperity. At the time when the cotton situation in the south | gave some cause for alarm Governoc | Harding so spoke as substantially to re- move or put an end to the anxiety. From his long business training in the south, and especially as a banker, he became 1 more familiar with the conditions affect
 ing the cotton planting industry than any | ether member of the federal reserve board | or in fact any other of the business men 1 who were called to the assistance of the government.
 Governor Harding now calls attention to the realization of foreign trade to national prosperity. Others have done this, but not always in as suceinct, lucid and yet brief a statement as that which Gov ernor Harding has made. It is a fact as Governor Harding says, that in the United States an excess of imports over leXports has been regarded as an unhealth- full condition, whereas if there occurred a favorable trade balance, even though II
 were more apparent than real, that is taken as an evidence of industrial and commercial activity, and, in fact, of gen. eral prosperity. Governor Harding inti- mates, although he does not in explicit terms state, that one cause of the ex- cessive activity in the securities market, an activity which his own federal re- serve board is now looking upon with some concern, may be due to the knowl- edge the people have of our vastly eX- banding exports which are in no meas ure even approximately matched by our imports There may be recollection, at least on the part of some who are old enough to recal lour experience Tn 1855,
 which had led them to believe that the re :. verse conditions today, which are amazing in magnitude will cause American secur- ities, industrial, railroad and others. to
 be of a market value within few months
 or perhaps for a year or two much great CT than they are today.
 Therefore, they are taking advantage Of present opportunity, when prices are still
 comparatively low, in the hope that hon
 orable gains will come to them When true values in securities are represented | by the market price.
 GOVERNOR HARDING'S VIEW
 Governor Harding himself recalls those
 dark days of lS93 the Barring failure in l London had shattered credit the world
 over, when business men in the United
 States who had securities that were fully worth par more were unable to borrow one cent upon them. The banks substan- tally stopped payment. President Cleve- , land summoned Congress into extraor- . dinary session for the exclusive purpose of repeating the so-called sherman law.
 The Secretary of the Treasury, John c Carlisle, had frankly stated that un- s les. relief was obtained the United States
 might be compelled to pay its debts ill /; silver Our exports in 1893 were of the money value of a little under $S50, ,Oo0 l while our imports were of the money - value in round numbers of $S75,OOooOO.
 WHEN THERE WERE EXPORTS As a result of our international trade
 
 heavy gold exports, and that was one oi
 the reasons why if it was possible te ., drain the federal treasury of its gold. II IF calling attention to this history, Gov
 error Harding plainly intimates that tho present day enormous excess of our ex ports over imports may justify the belle .- that the era of high prices will be main S tained, not to the disadvantage of th'
 people, for there will be employment suf
 ficient for all those who are anxious e to gain employment and there will be n' II hard times.
 $. Twenty-one years after the panic day e of 1893, when our imports exceeded ou e exports or at the time of the outbreal l. of the European war the trade balance il le our favor was only $324 .000, 900, and tha
 was more than offset by the nvisibl
 items representing our obligations tt le Europe.
 a Suddenly, almost with the swiftness o r. the lghtnings flash, there came an un y precedented expansion in our expor
 trade which gave us a favorable trad
 balance a year later of 75.00000O. Com n cidentally with that began the era of hig lg | prices Great as was the increase in l9l le o, CT 1914, it was afterward matched an t, surpassed so that in 1916 our export
 were of the money value of more tha
 a billion dollars greater than the none 10 value of the exports in the previous veal r. The excess of exports over imports l st each one of the three years after l9l e. was approximately s300O,000O00, or fo sd the three years period an aggregate Of Id little under s10,0O0, ,00o,0o0
 no HOW TO MAINTAIN TRADE h. Governor Harding is convinced that tn S. United States is in position to maintai k- this trade and to increase it. One of tf IT, reasons why he is of this opinion lies
 the fact that what he calls the "war-wor