In other words, labor will be dislocated in spots,
like the other parts of our industrial machinery.
Important dislocations will be felt in the fields of shipping and
banking. One consequence is that American enterprise has now the golden
opportunity to capture a good share of each. The outbreak of the war and
the simultaneous opening of the Panama Canal will tend to divert the
course of trade from Europe to South America. Probably our merchant
marine can be developed more successfully for this South American trade
than it could for the European trade. New York can largely take the
place of London as the world's exchange centre for Pan-American trade.
This opportunity is increased by the possibilities in the new Banking
act for the establishment of branch banks abroad.
With these opportunities and the rise of interest in Europe, the United
States will change to a great degree from a debtor to a creditor nation.
One of the dislocations of the war in the United States will be the
cutting off of imports of a large part of our dutiable commodities, and
therefore the loss of national revenue. There is an urgent need to
compensate for this loss by some other form of tax.
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