A NEW YORK VIEW.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 41, 19 February 1915, Page 4

A NEW YORK VIEW.

We may always look for advice from New York; frequently it is mere talk, sometimes it is humorous, and occasionally it is quite valuable and enlightening. But in any case it loves to deal in hig thing,s. and somehow or other a reference to the beloved “mil-

lion” must be dragged in. One New York firm gives its opinion on the war in a circular to its customers in the following terms :—“lt has caused five hundred millions of people to begin to save even their potato peelings. It has caused two hundred million people in Russia to be sober, all at one time, a thing that never happened in this world before. It has caused you and your neighbour in this country to reduce household expenses and to stop spending money on unnecessary things. It has suddenly checked the waste of capital by individuals, by corporations, and by the Government,, for even the Government is seized, with a' spirit of economy. Of course,! there is much unemployment in conse-j quence, and some of the readjustments are painful, but the economic effect will be wonderfully beneficial, and the ratio of productive to unproductive labour, in tbo economic sense,' will be higher afterwards. Under all its disabilities we dare say the world to-day is saving capital faster than before the war started. It was saving very little before. The trouble economically was that the world’s expenditure had overrun its ability to save, hence the rise in the price of capital everywhere, in the last few years. Nobody can predict with certainty what the economic effects of the war will be, but here are things to think about.”