The Irish standard., 1920-04-10

wealth OF our country Is our eXtraOr.
dinary intensive development of our
country. which contains almost half
the railroad mileage of the world and
seventy per cent of all telegraph and
telephone lines on earth, and which,
by the reason of our intensive devel-
opment, produces almost eighty per
cent of the copper of the world, sew
enty per cent Of the worlds petroleum,
ninety per cent of the corn of the
world, sixty per cent of the cotton
of the world, sixty per cent of the
worlds iron and steel. eighty per cent
of all the automobiles on earth, and
other things in proportion.
It is useless to pretend that the
people Of Europe do not know the
reason for the wealth and power of
this country, and it is idle to presume
that they do not intend to copy our
system of intensive development in
an effort to secure for themselves the
extraordinary wealth that is ours, and
to secure for themselves some part
Of the power that is ours through the
possession of such wealth.
Nothing in the history of the world
has ever demonstrated to the remotest
peoples thereof, the power, particularly
the war power, of industrial develop
ment and the possession of great
wealth. The most backward of people
have had this impressed on them in
such an unmistakable way that every
one who pretends to leadership in any
land, will for the next fifty years
preach the gospel of work and inten-
sive development for his own country.
Witness the parting words of the
old tiger, Clemenceau, to his consti-
tuency in declining to run for re-elec-
tion. His message to France, "Work
and Raise Children" will be re.echoed
by every lover of his country through
out the world.
We are, therefore, on the eve of a
period of intensive development of the
rest of the world which will certainly
continue for the next fifty years. Eu-
rope, Asia, Africa and South America
will follow each other in an effort to
equal or surpass the intensive devel-
opment of our country by our people.
This will produce such an appreciation
Of values and such an enormous in
crease in the incomes of the peoples
of the earth, as will force a recon-
struction of all previous ideas of what
is wealth and what is an ordinary
competency.
Does it need anyone to call atten-
tion to the enormous profits that must
follow in financing this intensive de.
velopment Of Europe, or of India, or
of China, where hundreds of millions
are waiting to be supplied with the
things that are the commonest Of com.
forts In our country, or does anyone
need to have his attention called to
the fact that the intensive develop.
ment Of Africa and of South America
and Of Australia presents opportuni.
ties similar to the development of our
own country west of the Mississippi
river during the past fifty years?
Look, II you please, at the values
or wealth Of that part Of our own
country living west Of the Mississippi,
in 1870, and compare them to the
values and wealth and population in
that same territory in this year Of
1920. The increase is $500 per cent!
Naturally such development in
Africa, South America and Australia
must be as slow as the development
Of our own West, for it is more or
less dependent upon the growth of
population in territories now inacces-
sible. But this is not the case in the
intensive development of Europe
which in spite of war losses still has
a population of 460,000,O0O or of India
with 325,oo0,Oo0 or of China with,
460,oO0,00o.
The wealth of Great Britain has
doubled in the past twenty-five years,
the wealth Of the German Empire
doubled in fifteen years, the wealth
of France has doubled in thirty years,
and the wealth of our own United
States has doubled in the past ten
years!
At the present rate of increase the
wealth Of Great Britain will in 1880
amount OF $200,0O0,000,000. The
wealth Of France to $120,O00,000, 900.
The wealth of the German states to
not less than $150,000, 100000, and
even 1taly's wealth will equal 100000
000,000.-
There is not country of Europe
now complaining of its war debt that
has not increased its wealth during
the war, in sum greater than the
debt that she now carries as the re-
suit of the war.