Indeed, if the war continues ten years,
Europe may be dependent upon us.
In a sense we are not ready to meet the crisis. During the last ten or
fifteen years the exports of foodstuffs have fallen off greatly, and the
supply in this country has actually declined in proportion to
population. There has been also a most marked increase in the exports of
manufactured goods and a decided increase in the importation of raw
materials, including foodstuffs. Now will come an enormous demand from
Europe for the very things of which we have not produced so much and
exported little or nothing--bacon, eggs, butter, beef. The demand will
also be greatly increased for woolen cloth, raw leather, shoes, steel
in all its forms, railroad equipment of all sorts, automobiles and
machinery, and, in particular, coal and gasoline. To supply this demand
old industries will be expanded and new ones created, and a shift of
capital and labor will inevitably take place to the industries for which
a demand becomes clear in Europe, as soon as it seems reasonably certain
that the war will last, beyond the present year.
An American Merchant Marine.
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