Republican farmer., 1919-10-03
WAR TOUCHED
 U. 5. LIGHTLY SAYS BIC BANKER
Wealth and Productive Ga pacity Have Been In
 creased is the Claim.
MADE
 WITH EUROPE
Declares It Better That Our Exports Should Continue Than to Gain Little by
 Price Drop.

| | Address in part, by MT. George E. Roberts, vice president of the l National City Bank of New York,
 l before the savings bank section of the American Bankers Asso- 1 ciation, at St. Louis, Wed, Octo- Der 1st
 1 The war has touched us lightly; | we have prospered through it and in | spite of it. We are a richer people 1 than when the war began, with great | CT productive capacity. Our wealth 1 and productive capacity are from ! one-third to one-half that of the 1 whole world. Our capacity for mak- i ing steel and labor-saving machinery
 and industrial equipment of all kinds 1 is equal to that of all the rest of the world combined. Furthermore, our 1 resources in the raw materials of in ] dustry and equipment for producing 1 them are greater than those of any 1 other country. We produce more l copper and cotton than all the rest 1 of the world, and Europe produces 1 but little of eithsr. l "Now that is a birds-eye view of l the relation in which we stand to Europe industrially in this greatest of 1 emergencies. We have what she needs 1 to restore her industries. Nowhere 1 else can it be had so quickly and it is ! needed quickly. Furthermore, we have the financial ability to give re- | lief. We were debtor nation before l the war, we came out of it a creditor | nation. We have brought back the 1 American securities that were held i in Europe at very low prices, by sell | ing them war materials and food 1 stuffs at very high prices, and they 1 are heavily in debt to us besides. | And the very fact that they sold back 1 our securities during the war makes l them more helpless now. They are l without quick assets that are avail i ale in this market. They have few ! goods to sell, for they have not been making goods. Their industries are prostrate, their machinery in many | instances broken or scattered, their i factories without raw materials, their 1 railroads crippled, their people short 1 of clothing and food. We tell them | they must get to work. Of course they
 must get to work, but it is slow get 1 ting to work without either tools or
 credit. And yet Europe, desperate
 as her situation is is not unworthy l of credit. The soil Of Europe, the 1 natural resources of Europe, the in- l dustrial properties and fixed wealth
 1 of Europe and lastly, and greatest of
 all, the population of Europe-to sum 1 it all up, the wealth-producing powers
 i of Europe are abundant assets. They ] have great debts, it's true, but ex- 1 cepting what they owe us they hold ! the debts themselves, so that they 1 count as assets as well as liabilities | The people of Europe are an indus l trious and skilfull population. They 1 are a wea1h-producing thrifty peo- i pie. They are good for a grub-stake. | They will work their way out if they 1 have a chance, and meet their obliga- l tions. The fact that they cannot pay cash on the nail does not prove | that they are bankrupt or unworthy | of credit. The situation is that they l have little wealth in transportable form, which they can ship across the
 ocean in exchange for what they 1 need. They can't ship their houses or mills or lands or coal mines or rail- l roads, but they can send securities | based on these things and pledge the i income from them.
 i There are only three ways in | which international payments can be
 made first, in the commodities of l trade, but we know that Europe Is
 unable to pay in these; she needs l rather to import them. Second in | gold, the money of international 1 settlements, but we know that they 1 have no gold that they can afford to | spare We have just received s158,- l 000,O 900 in gold from Germany in pay l ment for food. That must have been | nearly one-half of all she had, and I i am sorry some other means of settle ! ment was not found. For we don't i need that gold; we have too much
 now and Germany does need it. She | needs it as the basis of credit and her 1 industrial life, and while Germany and the United States have been ene- i mics in war, now that Germany has | signed the Treaty of Peace, I believe | we are interested in the restoration i of stable and normal conditions there We don't want gold from anyhere; it l will merely initiate our credits and | prices still further, and we have in 1 flation enough. And the third means l of payment is by promises to pay in | the future, and this is the only way | in which our export trade to Europe l can go on. 1 "Before we entered the war we re- l ceived over a million dollars in gold l from Europe, but after we entered l our Government began to make loans 1 to the allied governments to furnish l them the means Of making purchases | here. The Act of Congress authoriz- | ing those loans set the limit al s10,- ] o0O,0 100000, and something over S9,- | 600,0 100000 have been made. Over l $2,000, 100000 have been made since l the armistice was signed. Those
 l loans have supplied the means by
 1 which the great exports from this
 | country to Europe for the last two years have been paid. But the power
 1 to make these loans is nearly ex- | hausted, and when 1t Is exhausted, | some other means of supplying credit 1 must be found CT our exports will | fall off. In recent months all of the
 fallied governments have abandoned | their efforts to stabilize exchange ! rates in the open market, and as a l result they have all declined heavily, 1 and the decline increases the cost of i American goods. The discount on
 | the pound sterling is 15 per cent,
 l on the French franc over 40 per cent, | on Italian money over 50 per cent.
 We think prices are high in this 1