The Washington times., 1920-04-05
Money Always on Hand for
Enterprise Despite Talk
OF Scarcity Of Loanable
Funds.
M BOERsIANER-

ny bOEHsiANEh
More commercial people than ever
want TO negotiate loans, and all loans
are larger than ever. 1t takes 80
much more 10 carry a merchant ana
a manufacturer. and there are 80
many more merchants and manufac-
turers to carry. Listening TO these
no doubt sincere plants, one would
conclude financiering on broad
scale were not only impossible, but
that there were imminent danger OF
a catastrophe break In the tautness.
Yet somehow. in some way. money
Is found for other than commercial
purposes. Small and large enter
prises are floated-are literally sub
scribed to. Even the stock market Is
maintained--or maintains itself.
There are mysterious forces In IL
nance, just as there are Invisible as
sets in political economy which often
go astray the dogmatic statistictian;
which refuse TO belle Burke's scanda-
lous aphorism. Nothing 10 more de-
ceptive than facts save figures.
On the evidence OF the Federal re-
serve and other banks. business 9th
er than purely commercial should
be at dead stop. Still, promotions
proceed and rising markets-commo-
dities as well as securities-aitefnate
with lowering, without deranging the
general economic scheme. When con-
ditions as a whole are deemed sound
by the public at large the unsatisfac-
tory conclusions OF practitioners are
more or less unimpressionable. When
deemed sound technicians are set
aside and money comes forth from
unaccounted. unforeseen sources to
meet the bids OF promoters and bar
gain days on change. The average
juryman--on the political economic
case-realizes what the jaded gentle
man does not-that farming, still by
far the basic industry of the country.
has prospered asd is prospering un-
parallaledly-that the artisan earns
more and the. run Of Investors have
more than ever.
Our troubles are eXtrinsic, not In
trinsic. The burden is foreign, not
domestic. Much money has been
placed abroad, immense credits have
been granted there. These are the
real concerns, these demand atten-
ton. The anxiety and possibly
jeopardy were deepened by-let us
say charitably-the absolute COM
mercial ignorance OF the diplomatic
oligarchy at Versailles. The Little
Three at the little round table had
not the slightest idea that after
such a war nemises exacts a terri
BILE price in economic and financial
disorg gsnization: had no notion what
ever of the extent which victors and
yanquished must make common
cause against financial and economic
collapes.
Seventeen months after the armi-
stice what do we see? Continental
Europe in greater distress than be-
fore. The new States created by
the limited oligarchy have little po-
litical and no economic organiza-
| tions. Some are literally starving.
Business-po1itical economy-ap-
peared to have been beneath the
consideration of the Little Three. 1t
is so easy to despise what you don't
know--except> with a semi-conscien-
tious man like Asquith who in a des-
perated effort to do something for dy-
ing Austria suggests that the former
constituents be recognized 'as joint
territory from an economic point of
view
He is one of~the few onlookers who
realize that money talks much more
effectively than politicians. The sim
pie and world-old truth is, on the
stock exchange everybody does act
from a love of money; men come
there to make it. and they try to
make as much of 1t as they can.
or Wall or Lombard. streets or Ruc
Vivienne the same may be said: the
pecuniary phenomena of Wall Street
may be Investigated with quite suf-
ficient accuracy, as the assumption
| that bankers come there only to
make money, and when there make
as much of it as they can.
All markets are scenes nearly SIM
| liar: so long as they are at the mar
kets all dealers try to make the best
bargain they can.
AS, too. it Is necessary for all ma
| tions to be rich in order to be in
| fluential in the world, it follows.
| further, that on account of the COM
mercial motive OF action, taken by
itself, Is, as the world stands, an
analysis of the results of a principal
ingredient in the days that are gone
by. when poor barbarians, II war
like. were more powerful than rich
civilized people.
The times are gone by when civil
| ization enerNates energy, or when
| wealth impedes valour. Today, cour-
age without guns is useless. Political
economy traces, in an abstract way,
the effects of the desires to be rich
and nations must nowadays abound
in that passion il they are to have
much power or much respect in the
world.
But the Little Three had not the
vaguest conception Of these very
practical truths, whilst two were
busy drawing a political map OF the
| world, one was absorbed in organiz-
| ing the world in psalm singing
| society, pledging thereto, without
warrant. the illustrious traditions of
| his country.
FOREIGN BONDS.