The Washington times., 1920-03-29
Biz Nations to Aid Small
Ones When Reconstruc-
ton Move Gets Under
Full Swing.
By BOERsIANER.

ny noENosANIu.
Only in Wall Street are thu ele-
ments mixed. Elsewhere the country
is quite free OF completely and COM
plications.
An element In Wall Street Is sure
OF the validity of most values; GER
tain that railway shares are quoted
at prices that will look cheap "A year
hence, that every other conspicuous
industrial will yield stock dividend.
This element has with IL seasoned in
yestors and bankers whose institu-
lions lend themselves readily 10 wide
range promotions.
In opposition is the Government,
specifically the Federal Reserve
Board. and bankers who are not pro-
moters and who side with the Cow
ernment for strategic purposes. The
two latter intervene at brief intervals
by accentuating taut money mar
ket. The Government withdraws de-
posits and pro-Government bankers
call loans. Hence the retrograde days
in a generally progressive bourse sit
uation.
The broader deeper circumstances
favor the liberals In finance-as dis
tinguished from the conservatives.
Labor force and capability were not
impaired. in this country. by the war.
Natural resources are as they were.
Capital Is adequately available and
capitalists have been sharpened and
quickcned by wars experience. Sec
ondly English is coming on fast as
an involuntary fiscal and commercial
ally. More clearly, America is not
now alone in high solvency and in
being a reservoir OF credits.
There will come a day when Eng
lands plan of business supremacy
must be determinedly contested by
the United States. But at present her
rapid recovery is desirable. particu-
larly as she must majorly aid in
carrying the burden OF the European
continent. The dismaying-although
not despairing-aspect of world eco
Monies Is the Continent. 1t Is graver
at the moment in that the run of
continental Europeans now realize
how much was hidden from them
during the war by their governments.
how desperate was the struggle, how
lives and property were sacrificed,
what burdens must be borne for at
least a generation.
Undeceived as he is. the European
must understand that in the main
everything depends on himself-on
his efforts as an individual citizen.
Help he must have and will get,
chiefly, as it now appears, from Great
Britain. Rut the granting of easy
and unlimited credits to the continent
and nothing else were like attempt
ing to Cure an inebriate by plying
him with more liquor.
II is not by facile credit-taking that
the continental countries may estab'
lish some sort of equilibrium. but by
hard labor. by determined efforts at
read justments by diminishing their
imports, by buying from FELLOWSHIP
ferers. food from Russia and Rumania,
manufactures from Germany.
Then must follow-and as speedily
as possible-currency curtailment, de-
flation. Admittedly a stable currency
is impossible for any country whose
foreign trade continues to show a
heavy adverse balance, whose budget
makes a loose makeshift of balanc-
ing receipts and expenditures. Honest
money comes from paying ones way
In the world. The productive process
must first be set in motion. Just as a
serious currency depreciation dimin-
ishes production so restoration or
an increasing production. is the only
foundation for return to sound
monpv