The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1915. AMERICA’S WAR BENEFITS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 89, 17 April 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1915. AMERICA’S WAR BENEFITS.

Undoubtedly this war means colossal business for the United States of America, and there is little need for the squealing indulged in regarding the checking of trade in contraband with Germany. Statistics and information now available from reliable sources show that the manufacture of arms and ammunition for foreign Governments steadily increased for more than a year prior to the beginning of the war. At present it is estimated that the exportation approximates 1.500.000 dollars worth of war materials a month. In October it was 1,0-15,218 dollars. In June, 1913, Russia purchased 8493 dollars worth of arms and ammunition in America. This figure was increased in the following June to 617,024. dollars, before the declaration of war. The Pittsburg Foreign Trade Commission asked manufacturers there for prices on, 1.000. drop forge shells for use byj British artillery. The value of the contract was 4,000,000 dollars. The New York Herald reports that in Bridgeport it is estimated that 4,000,000 dollars worth of new building is now under way to take care ol excess war business, and that since August more than 25,000,000 dollars worth of war orders have been idled there. At the great steel works at Bethlehem the war departments are being rushed night and day, filling orders for England. it is calculated that so far war material worth at least J 2.000.000 dollars has been shipped. This does not mean only shrapnel shells, but big guns, too. When the war began the steel company was fulfilling contracts for about 1,500,000 dollars worth of coast defence guns lor Chili, about 3.000. dollars worth of armament for Argentine torpedo boats and battleships, and also contracts for Greece and other foreign countries. It is said that emissaries of England, France, and Russia managed to buy up most of this material and such as has already been completed has been shipped. When Hr C. M. Schwab received bis war contracts they were estimated to be worth all the way from (5,000,000 dollars to 100.000,000 dollars. The projectile department alone is able id turn out 3000 shells a day. That Mr Schwab's English war contracts are successive is borne out by the fact that 20 English inspectors are stationed there and expect to remain there for two years. The 1 nion Yletallic Cartridge Company, of Bridgeport, has doubled its plant at a cost of .1,500,000 dollars. Two million rounds of ball cartridges are shipped daily from their plant, which employs 10.000 bands. The Winchester Repeating Arms Company is one of the busiest plants in the world to-day. and for several months has worked a full force of six thousand employees on regular and night shifts. The company’s buildings* which occupy a

around space as great as almost any plant in the United States, have proved inadequate, and buildings costing over half a million dollars and providing for hundreds of thousands oi additional feet of Hour space are now in course oi construction.