Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1921-05-05
GOLD, BUSINESS AND TARIFF


in this country and more still coming:
coming from Europe that wants raw
materials and cannot get credit, COM
ing from South America where dis
turbed conditions interfere somewhat
with credit. coming. it is said, from
Russia that must have some of our
goods and is sending the stolen gold
with which to pay for them. not hav-
ing credit and not likely to have un-
der the present regime.
Or the other hand, where a year
age shippers could not get cars to
transport their products, there now
are over 4OO, 900 of them idle. Our ex-
ports last March receded s436,000,000,
as compared with March of last year.
Our surplus of material is piling up,
over seven million bales of cotton,
enormous quantities of wheat, more
than a billion pounds of copper. One
authority states that our productive
machinery has increased in capacity
from 1910 to 1920 more than 30 per
cent. Four to five million of our peo-
pie are idle. Among those employed
the spirit of rendering an equivalent
is yet below normal, though some
what higher than before it became
so evident that there are more work.
ers than there is of work for them to
do. Manifestly the fact of having so
much gold isn't making business for
the idle cars, ships and men. Meth
er does the holding in warehouse of
our abundance of raw materials
make for prosperity.
The problem is a knotty one, but
the world is waiting for it's solution
and those interested are filling the
columns of the press and adding tons
to the mails with their propaganda.
Certain phases of these conditions are
definitely clear: the worlds trade
won't get under weigh until provision
longtime credit to foreign nations
wishing to buy of US. They haven't
the gold to pay cash. We already
have that They need our raw ma
tcrials that they may clothe and feed
themselves Machinery has been
made to meet the demand in the Edge
law and the Foreign Trade Financing
Corporation.
1t is argued that many>of the coun-
tries now struggling to regain their
pre-war standing have lost little in
natural resources or industrial COM
potency, though of the latter there is
room for doubt But it would seem
they offer reasonable assurance that
with peace they can and will meet
their obligations
These conditions afford the free
trader opportunity to discourse on the
need of more importations: that we
must buy goods of the foreigners,
taking them in payment of the debts
they owe us. But if we buy our
goods of the foreigner instead of at
home we surely are not getting ahead.
The tendency would be to force us
into producing raw materials for the
foreigner to make up. There must
be interchange, but so regulated as
TO protect in ours the greatest mar
ket of the world the standards of life
which Americans have set up and
with which they propose to abide.
No one appreciates the need of this
interchange, the value of foreign
trade, better than Hoover, but he is
not willing that Germany, for in
stance. hiring its manufacturing done
with paper money, with. which that
country is flooded, with its trade
channels subsidized, with its people
forced to work or starve, shall make
of the United States a dumping
ground. On the contrary he urges
the need of a protective tariff, "of a
large order" Undoubtedly Germany
is in a position to undersell any other
white mans country. The deprecia-
lion of her money enables her to do
this. for one advantage, and her nee
essities drive her to do it. Her goods
80 produced become as much a men
act to the high standards Of civiliza-
ton as do those of China-more. be-
cause her initiative and productive
capacity are superior. There must
come a day of settlement Of the obl-
cations represented by Germany's in
fiated currency and when 1t does
Germany will pay. Meanwhile she
should not be permitted to prosper at
our expense. If the high standards
may be maintained, in time Germany
will be obliged to come up to them.
W. 80. kS,S~ doxyoynnincr IN China and