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Show STABLE CONDITIONS. "The balance of trade was more than 3,lo0,000,0P0 in favor of the United States for the year ending December 31, and so long as the war lasts we shall sell very much more than we shall buy in the foreign markets. Nevertheless, Neverthe-less, we cannot reaonably expect the balance to be so heavily in our favor in the future, for we are now in the war, and if we can obtain any kind of supplies for our army at the front in Great Britain, France or Italy, it will he no more than right to make the purchases. pur-chases. There are a number of good reasons for such action, the chief one being the desire to aid our allies in their time of stress. However, we do not believe the United States will be able to make very heavy purchases of supplies for the army anywhere in Europe. . Tn ordinary years American tourists spend hundreds of millions of dollars in London and continental Europe. The war has cut off this source of revenue and great hardship has resulted in some of the countries as a result. Xearlv ev eryone who went abroad visited Paris, and the money spent at the hotels and restaurants and in ''seeing the sights'' kept things humming to some extent in the one-time gayest capital of Europe. At present there are no luxuries to be had in Paris and the city is more or less enveloped in gloom. The streets aro not filled with the gay crowds of yore, but with crippled soldiers and widows and orphans, the latter frequently fre-quently finding it very difficult to get the necessaries of life. The financial situation is very bad and were it not for the war loans authorized au-thorized by the congress tit Washington Washing-ton France would be bankrupt, or approximately ap-proximately so, at least. The French have been the principal backers of Russia Rus-sia for a long time. But the Russian government is in the hands of anarchists anar-chists and interest on the Russian obligations obli-gations is not being paid. But the French people have one new source of revenue in addition to the sums spent by the United States government. There are many thousauds of American soldiers sol-diers in France and the number is continually con-tinually increasing. These soldiers get their pay over there am! can be depended de-pended upon to spend a considerable p'j.'.'U ut it it' :hcv can fh;d any'uiug to suit t h -: r fancy. This traic wili amount to manv miiliors. and we dare it will r -'I'. " a '.cri'.'ii'b' o !b 1 tc t iif I d'CL h pel. pie. Hut 11,1 matter what the financial 'Omiition of tin; countries of Kuropc. ! tin' United State", will continue to thrive and prosper, nnd a panic seems well ii;eh impossible, largely owing tu the nc-.v currency law and our large gold re-iive. A trade balance in our favor will also tend to strengthen our po-ition. We went to a paper basis during the Civil war, and gold sold as high as cib'.j. We have had two or three panics since that time, tho last one occurring during the Roosevelt administration, ad-ministration, in lfni?. This so-called 'Roosevelt panic'' was brought on by wild speculation in Wall street and did not last very long or result in heavy losses throughout the country. But it served to show the instability of our financial system and the necessitv for a change. As a result the present federal fed-eral reserve bank law was evolved, passed by congres and put into opera-I opera-I tion. Under old conditions a panic could he produced by comparatively trivia causes. Xow we are engaged in a war entailing the expenditure of billions bil-lions of dollars and a flurry in Wall street has practically no effect except to cause a discussion as to whether it would not be a good thing for the government gov-ernment to put an absolute stop to stock exchange speculation until after the war. Congress is again in session after the holiday recess,- and some huge appropriation appro-priation bills will ho debated and passed? We shall be getting deeper and deeper into debt as tho war progresses pro-gresses and the taxes wdll continue to be increased. Yet only the most confirmed con-firmed pessimists have' any fears for the future or harbor thoughts that the United States will come to grief so far as the finances of the country are concerned, by reason of the war. The truth is, we could not be in better condition, con-dition, all things considered, and it is possible, even probable, that we shall come out of the war with more ready cash than we had when we went in. At any rate, there is no cause for apprehension ap-prehension upon the part of any class of citizens, even though it is necessary to economize. |