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Show : Too Quick a Diagnosis One of two things is (?nerally wrong with discussions of i he nation's business situation. Either it is taken for grant-d grant-d that thn country has gone to the dogs and will never be ble to lift its head from the pi'low again, or it is assumed hat everything is really all right and that we need only a ttle bit of Pollyanna gladness and hope to be as prosperous I nd happy as we ever were. , .Recovery wi'l come, of course will come, probably, be-1 be-1 ijre we have stopped wailing about hard times. Sooner or iter we shall be. more prosperous and busy than we were in 928 and 192'J, and the time may not be as far off as we appose. On the other hand, there is no sense in trying to pre- 2nd that there is nothing the matter with us except a pessi-I pessi-I listic frame of mind. The bread lines have been real enough ; i ie Red Cross and other relief organizations have been busy jiiough. There has been plenty of suffering, and one must e u simpleton to deny it. ' , However, it is possible to strike a happy medium in ap-ruising ap-ruising the situation. In the current Magazono of Wall Street, Theodore Knap-en Knap-en reviews things and finds that whi'e conditions are bad nough, 1930 has not by any means been a total loss. For example, he points out that the brunt of the busi-dss busi-dss depression fell on the steel, construction and automobile 1 idustries. But even so, these industries were better off inn in 1920. ' Similarly, the total volume of mianufacrjrers in America j 1 1930 was far above the total for 1920. There was only a I ' ight drop in electric power output from 1929. The gaso-: gaso-: ., ne consumption for 1930 was the largest in American his-ry. his-ry. Department stove sales in 1930 equalled those of 1929 i volume, and were only slightly below them in value. Chain ';;tore sales increased in volume, and fell off in value only actionally. 1 Nor is that all. Savings bank deposits gained during 930. The aggregate of interest and dividend payments on icurities was considerably ahead of that of 1929. Capital .sues of domestic securities were larger than in any prev-)Ui prev-)Ui years except 1928 and 1929. What does all of this mean? Why, obviously, that the .mntry is in better health than we have supposed. This is ot to fay that there has not been mcuh suffering. It is not j say that there has not been a great deal of unemploy-lent, unemploy-lent, a great deal of hunger, a great deal of discouragement. ! lut it does mean that the country is on a very sound basis : jr a healthy trade revival which can hardly be postponed mch longer. |