The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-01-15
EXPORT TRADE IS
 GROWING PROBLEM
BY HOLLAND

New York. January HL-tSpecial1 1-ESor the business world the. chief oueetion even in this presidential year which mist
 be answered within the next i2 months is this; Wiii It be possible for the United States to maintain and to increaea its International trade relations and to exs pcrS commodities the aggregate of v,bic,
 may be in money value al least s7 Ooo : OO0OO0, perhaps more For if is recoe rized that the state of things which had characterized our foreign trade relations
 since the war began. and especially since the United States government advanced SIC 00O, 000 to the nations across tba sea cannot be maintained many months Presumably during the year 1eIe a large amount of credit was furnished bv indi. viduals, by banks, and in some cases ny industrial corporations Otherwise our exports must have fallen off. But can private aid or corporations or banking aid be continued until. at last Europe is normal? Some of our industrial ,aaders report that they have been compelled to refuse to sell their commodities in Flu rope for two reasons. one being the ab- normally low rate of foreign exchange and the other that the would-be mr. chas&ers of American commodities are in
 many cases asking for longtime credit
 Credit of this kind the manufacturers
 industries of the middle west would ha |
 amounts of it's commodities, and that is
 understood to be true of some of the au- tomobile manufacturers But in order 10 do this they must extend credit covering
 months. and they cannot grant such priv ileges without impairing their own re- sources.
 WERE EXPORTS TO FALL OFF Were there to come large falling off in exports then of sudden the public VI ka lo,, 1,,xl and that q great crisis has of a sudden arisen. For if there were falling off in exuports the effect of that would be felt in probably every one of the American manufacturing industries, and that would be followed by condition which would give serious concern to tile farmers of the United States. The Secretary of the Treasury, Mir. Glass, has gone so far as to say that hereafter the government will refrain from aiding in any financial way the maintenance of our export trade He is sure that, as the exporters are to gain their rewards in the way of profits which follow the marketing of their prod
 ucts and commodities in other lands, they ought to take upon themselves the re-
 sponsibility of financing the sale of these
 products. In other words. they should
 make advances in the way of credits or loans.
 On the other hand some of the ablest
 men of finance and in the American in- dustries are convinced that the aggregate
 sum which is needed, if our exports are
 to be maintained and increased. is so
 large, reaching high into the billions, >nitt
 it would be impracticable, probably ifn-
 possible. even. for this to be done unless
 the government were to help A report
 has recently been made by high financial
 authority. stating that our exports will
 not continue unless a way to pay for
 them is found Credits must be provided
 to cover them and the sum to be 3ro-
 vided is too large unless there be an or
 ganized appeal to the country and to every part of the country" What appeal
 must be made also to the farmers of ehe United States? In this statement is to be discovered the germ of the plan which was proposed by Henry F. Dawson shortly after his return from Europe last spring. Dr. Davison afterwards said that