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Show DEPRESSION AND MARKET. Ninety per cent of everything produced pro-duced in the United States is consumed con-sumed in the United States, yet on the plea that foreign trade has been disrupted involving, after all, only 10 per cent of our production business busi-ness generally has decreased 25 and 30 per cent. Those figures should be pasted above the desk and stared at in amazement. They brand the country as the victim of mob hysteria. At a time when, through the practice of individualism, this country had got a corner on most of the world's automobiles, bathtubs, artists, silk stockings, and all that these stand for, the 10 per cent foreign market goes bad and the fingers of distrust grip the internal trade. What if the whole foreign market was cut off the whole 10 per cent which certainly hasn't happened ? The result would be troublesome, especially especial-ly for those few industries which specialize in foreign shipments, such as the lumber industry of the Pacific Northwest; but a 10 per cent reduction reduc-tion of the prosperity of 1928 should not, after all, make any great difference differ-ence in our national life. That margin mar-gin could be absorbed, in fact, by the practice of efficiency and the elimination elimin-ation of wastes that crept into the system in the free and easy times. If our own people had been able, psychologically, psy-chologically, to ignore foreign trade conditions as they were revealed in the autumn of 1929, the period of deflation would be hardly noticeable at home. The tragedy is that under the present pres-ent conditions, with most people who have money hiding in the financial storm cellars, much of the advantage which we won in the days of .confidence .confi-dence is being lost to us. We forged ahead of other nations through mass production, mechanical supremacy and the strength given by a sense of destiny. des-tiny. But a rower cannot rest on his oars without those behind catching up. We are still far ahead what are we waiting for? Portland Oregon-ian. |