The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-10-17

mand on it's return to normal will meet a curtailed supply This rapid upturn is comparable to the sharp which occurred in cotton last month and it Is having the same stimulating effects on trade in the regions affected. A similar recovery Is to be expected eventually in coffee and sugar. though they declined last week, for a period of excessively low quotations for the great staples Is invariably followed by a curtailment in production and an advance in price. Already Cuban reports indicate marked decrease in the sugar crop for 1922.
 Demand for lower railway rates from many important quarters, in- cluding the agricultural bloc in the Senate, and the unemployment con- ference, will strike a common target at the meeting of railway executives now being held in Chicago. A state ment by President Req of the Penn sylvania that lower rates are neces- sary to readjustment connotes an inn portant change from the attitude heretofore held by many executives that the increase last year was so small as to play no part in curtailing traffic. A voluntary rate reduction would place the powerful weapon of public support in the railroads hands for use in their war against present wage scales and working rules.
 Longer Skirts Aid
 Not the least important item of the week is a confirmation of reports that women's skirts are to be longer. which government statisticians esti- mate will mean the consumption of $50,000,000 worth of cloth above last seasons total.
 From abroad comes news of another billion mark expansion in German note circulation and continued scramble in central Europe to ex- change paper money for physical property. which can only presage an uninterrupted decline in the purchas- ing power and ultimate demonetza- tion of the irredeemable paper in cir culation. Reflecting this, the mark has declined to new low and in New York last Thursday 100 marks could be boughtSfor 69 cents.
 The threat which this plague spot holds for tho rest of the world is not yet adequately understood here. American relief workers in Russia re- port that the suffering from famine is far worse than they have seen In any other European country. I know my readers will be surprised to learn that there are three wars at present being fought across the Atlantlc-the e Greco Turkish, the Spanish Moroccan, the Albanian Jugo -Slavan, and that fighting is going on in Silesia and Burg genland, between Austria and Hungary Western Europe. however, makes progress, and sterling exchange advanced to 3S.S6% last.~week. In India Gandhi's passive non-co- opera tion' has become active enough to burn European goods, and the move ment. with its potentiallties of more serious trouble. Is gathering strength
 Only infrequent shadows of these troubles fall across the United States, and certainly none of them have darkened the Polo grounds in New York, where 270,000 people have paid nearly a million dollars to see eight baseball games. That this should 20 on while conference in Washington was discussing means to relieve un- employment is spectacle worthy of the attention of any able satirist. Discussion of the incongruity Is not within the scope of these articles, but 1t is obvious that nothing can be se- riously wrong with country where thousands of important business men can shed their troubles so lightly.