Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 221, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1915 — A Gigantic Financial Problem. [ARTICLE]

A Gigantic Financial Problem.

St. Louis Globe Democrat. It is with somewhat of a shock that he country J earns that the AngloFrench financial commissioners come not with an appeal but with a demand. The United States, we are informed, if the reports are to be credited, must loan a billion dollars, or thereabouts, on the notes of the allied governments, and without collateral security. If we refuse they will look elsewhere for their supplies, other than instruments of war. This i§ in the nature of an ultimatum, and we get the impression that it is a matter of indifference to the allies whether we take, it or leave, it. We may >e sure there is no such indifference, but so far as ih United States is concerned no more critical situation has arisen since the war began than that which now confronts us.

The placing of a loan for such stupendous sum, dependent entirely upon the continued stability of the credit of these governments, would tie us to their interests. With a billion dollars, an amount equaling our national debt, $lO for every man, woman and child in the republic, invested in the chancds of allied victory, where would be our neutrality? These countries are now piling up their indebtedness at home, millions upon milions, to such aggregates as never were known before, and they seek to add to their liabilities by borrowing other millions upon millions from us. With such tremendous burdens how can they so maintain their credit, even if they win, that their notes will be held at par, or anywhere near par ? And if they lose, what would be the situation of the American holders of their billion-dollar note issue? Would not every holder of such notes be deeply concerned in the result of the war, and would not every one be disposed strongly to exert his influence in behalf of the cause in which his money would be invested? On the other hand these countries are our best customers. By far the largest part of our export trade goes to them and their present associates not only now but all the time. We have a strong desire and a great need for a continuance of that trade. Unless we can sell our surplus products to them we will have almost no outside market, and the consequences to domestic buisness would be disastrous. The question is, can they do without us? Can they get from themselves and from the rest of the world the supplies they must have? Is their hardly concealed threat a bluff which they cannot “make good ? ” A partial answer is found in their present purchases. They admit they must oome to us for their munitions of war. Are they buying our other products just because they love us? They must come to us for cotton. They must come to us for many things they cannot get elsewhere. But admitting that they might find other sources of supplies, could they buy anywhere on the terms they now propose to us ? That they could transfer a large proportion of their purchases to other lands is, ,to say the least, doubtful. They cannot forget, either, that they have goods to sell to us as well as we to them, and that international boycotts can be worked both ways. -_ 1

But aside from all that, our prosperity is tremendously involved in the settlement of this question. Whether the allied governments must buy from us or not, we want to sell to them, we must sell to them, or sustain losses painful to contemplate. Yet we cannot sell to them unless we can be reasonably sure of payment. It is a gigantic problem, the solution of which well may tax the genius and the patriotism of the financial and commercial interests of the country.