FOREIGN TRADE OF THE UNITED STATES 367 



and by resolute suppression of militarism, the progress towards recovery 

 may be more satisfactory. To be sure, the Napoleonic wars and our 

 Civil war cost their thousands of millions of dollars each, and ruin was 

 prophesied in both cases, but the debts are almost paid. Let us hope 

 the war will end with a genuine trial of the experiment of Christianity 

 and an abolition of the worship of Mars and Moloch. There is nothing 

 to be said in favor of war as a means of settling difficulties. It has 

 never settled anything except that the strongest and most savage usu- 

 ally wins. The real settlement comes afterward, by arbitration, which 

 could better be done before the war commences, with nations as with 

 individuals. There is nothing that so easily provokes war as to pre- 

 pare for it. Had Germany not been so carefully prepared, there would 

 have been no war this year. In the old days when every one went 

 round armed, prepared for defense, there were in consequence countless 

 duels and homicides. No sensible man maintains that the way to pre- 

 serve peace among citizens is by preparing for private wars. No sens- 

 ible man can believe in war among nations, iinless brought up to it, 

 any more than he could agree with the sixteenth-century theologians 

 that there were children in Hell not a span long. 



The newspapers have made much of our great export trade in Novem- 

 ber, but the figures show that, because of the falling off in value of 

 cotton shipments, instead of being greater it is thirty million dollars less 

 than in November of last year. "While the rest of our crops have been 

 unusually good, with a farm value of more than three hundred million 

 dollars over the crops of last year, the effect of the war in our cotton 

 crop leaves a deficiency, compared with 1913, of about twenty- five 

 million dollars for the total value of the crops. And the cotton crop 

 is our money crop, the sale of which abroad pays a large share of our 

 indebtedness, and in addition turns the tide of gold shipments to this 

 country. The cotton states are suffering far more than any other por- 

 tion of the country. The impossibility of selling the cotton at remu- 

 nerative prices, owing to the curtailment of the foreign demand, coupled 

 with the size of the 1914 cotton crop, estimated at over 16,000,000 

 bales, the largest in history, makes the financial situation there quite 

 serious. This will not be an unmixed evil, if it urges our southern 

 friends to more diversified farming, and cultivate economy in produc- 

 tion and living expenses. 



The success of our foreign trade depends largely upon our ability 

 to finance it. After the outbreak of the war it was assumed by many 

 that since three fourths of the supplies of South America, which is our 

 most important field of exploration, came from Europe (a large portion 

 from Germany) the war would at once greatly increase our trade there; 

 not realizing that South America had been financed by Europe and the 

 war made it temporarily bankrupt. We can not expect much immediate 

 trade from South American customers unless we can give them credit. 



