But it is well not to lose perspective, to remember that dislocations
are not necessarily losses, that, however loudly they are proclaimed in
news columns, they are small in extent, when considered in relation to
our whole trade, that this country of ours is a vast one, and that the
rank and file of Americans will be but slightly affected by the
war--especially by contrast with our friends, now fighting each other,
across the sea.
We are too nearly self-supporting to be prostrated. Our foreign trade is
and always has been a trifling matter compared with our internal
commerce. The internal commerce paid for by money and checks annually
in the United States amounts to nearly five hundred billions of dollars,
which is more than a hundred times as much as our combined exports and
imports.
Almost all of what has been said so far had grown out of the prospect
that the prices of foods and other materials needed in Europe will be
high, while the prices of securities which Europe does not need and
cannot afford will be low. Other prices will rise or fall according to
special circumstances. Like a bomb-shell, the effect of the war will be
to disperse or scatter prices at all angles of rises and falls.
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