Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-01-15
Business on the Ub-Curve
of Steady Readjustment ,

|
| will be much better as soon as the
- processes of economic reimbursement
now going forward complete some are
disposed to rejoin, rather impatiently: "Yes
yes; but what we we want to know is,
WHEN will this precious readjustment be
over?"
A thoughtful and far from definite answer
may be found in an address made this week
l. by a keen and conservative student of the
business trend-Mr. Francis H. Sisson, vice
president of the Guaranty Trust Company, OF
New York. Granting that years will be re-
quired to replace fully the enormous vast
age and destruction of the war, and to
solve it's entailment of social and political
problems, he asserts nevertheless that there
| is "ample groun for believing that we shall
reach a relatively stable condition in this
country in the very near future" And with
treasured confidence he adds, 1--WE have I'M
! doubtedly passed through the most critical of
our postwar establishments"
Referring particularly to readjustments or
the costs of production to present purchasing
power, and OF retail prices to declining
wholesale prices, he points out that these,
! though tardily started are now under way,
and twill be accomplished gradually but
with ever accelerating speed" The new
and stable basis of production costs are
expected to be reached not only through wage
readjustment, though that will play an i'm
portant part but also through increased Ell
ficiency and a decrease from wartime prof
it's: The net result will be an easement of
the long burdensome problem of living
for the rank and file, and the general bust
ness advantage which normality bestoWs.
Especially cheering is the prediction that
those whose incomes were little affected
during the last five years and who suffered
most will be afforded an increasing measure
of relief from now on
Purchasing power in this country is I'M
mense, even when allowance is made for the
constructing effect Of the sharp decline In
prices OF farm products and the suspension
or curtailment of divers industTials, together
with wage reductions. Where there is so
much of inherent econom.c vigor as IN the
United States, so rich a diversity Of produc-
ton and so considerable volume of bus1-
ness, even when demand Is at Minimum,
prosperity can never reach the cherries ebb
known to less favored lands. Moreover,
when our tides of trade turn toward the full
again, they will be the more active because,
as Mr. Sisson says, "of the delay and the
deficits in the present commodity stocks"
Thus he adds, "the situation is even now
devlsing its own corrective, and the
pendulum of business activity which has
swung to the two extremes of its arc is al
ready returning to the mean"
These observations concerning the country
as a whole are especially reassuring to the
South; for, in spite of the griefs Of cotton,
this region has been, and still is, in many re-
spects the most fortunate in the entire ma
ton. It's interests were not so largely and
closely bound up in war industries as were
those of other sections; and-its natural re-
sources are incom. ,arably varied as well as
rich. May it not, then, be reasonably ex-
pected that the return to a normal and
hence stable basis of business will be &C.
complished in the South if not sooner than
elsewhere, at least as soon?
Certainly the year has begun with good
augurioS-the RESUMPTION of full-timo OPERA
lions by suspended textile mills, the pro-
lection of feasible, well-deined plans to pro-
duce maximum food crops and only con-
sentative amount of cotton; a marked, in
deed vigorous revival of retail trade; and.
what is particularly important, the begin
ming of actual service by ten million dol
lar exports corporation for facilitating the
sale of Southern products abroad. With
these and sundry other happy omens. to-
gether with the assurance that the nation
wide establishments so long looked for and
so much needed now on their upward
trend, watchful business leadership in Geor-
gia and neighbor states are highly and war
rantablv heartened