The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-11-08
Daily Financial Gossip
By HOLLAND

New York, November 7.-(Special)- The final session of the present Con-
 gress will be short. lasting only three
 months. Therefore there will be little
 opportunity to do more than pass the appropriation bills. By the first of
 the year Congress will have received
 the reports which will tell of the az Sregate of our foreign trade in the cal endar year 1920. The figures will be interesting and highly suggestive. but
 they will contain nothing which will ! call for action by the present Congress 1 It will deVolVe upon the new Congress 1 to take such action as may be neces-
 sary to aid the United States in main
 taining it's foreign trade and in com peting successfully or at least upon 1 equality with Great Britain. The new Congress, which was elected upon Tuesday of last week will, it is pre- sumed, be called into session early in the spring. There were intimations in
 some of the things which Senator Hard 1 ing said while the campaign was in progress that 1t was his purpose to summon the new Congress into extra session if he were elected President within q month from the day of his in- ] auguration.
 i Upon election day there came from the department of commerce at Wash ington q most interesting and sugges- tive summary which tells of our inter national trade betw cen January 1 and October l of this year The figures are of such magnitude that only by care ful study can the meaning which lies
 behind them be revealed. It is not
 enough simply to say that we sold and sent to Europe between January and October commodities whose money value was $500, 900. 900 less than the money of the goods we exported in the : like period of 1919.
 The mere statement made by the de- | pertinent that we bought in Europe and brought into this country in the nine months since January l commod- ities whose money value was more than twice the money value of commodities imported for the like period of 19i9 of , itself means little, unless there be un- ders Sanding of the reasons for the change which these figures indicate. In the first nine months of f9a0 our inn ports from Europe were of the money value of almost exactly one billion dol lars. That was half billion more than the money value of the imports for the | like period in 1913 l On the other hand. we sold and sent to Europe and other ports ot the world commodities of the money value of | $3, 300. 100000 approximately, but in the l like period of 1919 our exports to these countries were of the money value of | 8, ,S56 nH0 ONO
 GAINS AND LOSSES BALANCE 1t is curious fact that our imports in 1920 showed a gain measured in dol | lars almost equal to our loss repre- sented by dollars in exports. as com pared with the imports and exports of the previous year. The question is asked what does this mean. Are we gradually losing our exports. and at the same time more than gradually even rapidly, increasing our imports? It might be assumed from the figures which cover the first nine months of this year that imports are rapidly catching up with exports. But the rec
 ord made in September seems to fur nish good reason for duobting this in- ference. Because in September our inn ports from Europe were in money value only about g. million dollars in excess of the money value of our imports last year. We imported less from France and less from the United Kingdom. Had 1t not bee nfor our new trade with Ger many, the imports for September of this year would have been considerably less in money value than the imports in 1 September of last year.
 TRADE IN SPITE OF WAR i We are still at war technically with Germany which is known to be serious l ly embarrassed because of lack of raw material most of which heretofore was secured in the United States, and also On account of inability to pay for much needed material. Nevertheless we i'm ported German goods in September of 1 this' year of the money value of nearly ten million dollars, whereas in September of the previous year German goods im- ported represented only about million and half.
 1 On the other hand. Germany secured in the United States nearly twenty million 1 dollars worth of goods. In September but only nine million dollars of goods ] last year.
 i Compared with our trade with Germany before the war these are trivial figures 1 But they do indicate that although there l is technical war with Germany there is actual peace and that when peace in name as well as fact is established our 1 trade with Germany will rapidly increase 1