TOPICS OP THE DAY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 111, 3 October 1914, Page 7

TOPICS OP THE DAY.

TuE MASTERY OF MACE. (Now York World). Facts rule the world. Facts are fortune to those who recognise tncm. Thre« facts at ithis moment appeal mightily to to the United States.

With the formal organisation recently of the Fedural Reserve Board Ih'ib country has an assurance for the first time in its history of a banking and •currency system just, powerful scientific, sound. There is to be no more crazy inflation. There is to be 1:0 more political or speculative finance. There is to be no more (monopoly of credit or of money. On the good faith and the true weal tli of the republic, fairly safeguarded and made available not to a few but to all, our business transactions are now to be based.

Bottomed on this rock, American en-1 terprise finds itself challenged at once j by world-wide commercial demoralisa- ( tion resulting from a Continental war in Europe. As a result of these (hostilities I thousands of ships have been swept from , the seas. Exchange ia destroyed. Industry is halted. Trade is paralysed. Yet markets once closed to us have opened. The channels of communication with the Orient, with South America, with Europe itself, long almost unknown tu our shipping enterprise, abandoned by those who recently controlled them, , invito us to enter, ! The Panama Canal, constructed by 1 the United States at a cost of hundreds of millions, is ready for use. It is open to all on equal terms, but a beneficent fortune has decreed that any nation whose generosity and far-sighted vision pierced the isthmus, may be, if it will he, the one to receive its first and richest rewards. While Europe abandons ; commerce to make its awful sacrifices j to war gods and war lords, we are urg- | ed by every consideration of self-inter- ■ e.-it, as well a' by our colossal investment on behalf of the national trade, ! to put the canal to the most urgent and 1 most profitable uses of peace. Those are three momentous facts, in- : deed, all harmonising, all co-ordinating - toward a great end; but there is another ; which was not foreseen. War has silcne- ; ed faction amongst the neutrals no less , than other belligerents. In respect of j certain great economical problems the j people of the United States are in more complete accord to-day than ever before. The old acadmuie disputes are forgot teu. It is generally admitted that our opportunity has come and that to improve it we do not need subsidies so much as selfreliance, nor party platforms so much as native good sense, nor diplomacy r-o much as energy. In the activity of our great commercial organisations and in the apparent willingness of every apparent governmental agency at Washington to assist reasonably without partisan or doctrinaire cavil may he seen the promise of a trade expansion that a month ago was d-cm-ed impossible. There is no need of much talk. There ia no call for public assistance. There is no time for squaring fiction with worn-out political and cconomio prejudices. The seas are ours if we tako care to possess them. The markets of the world are ours if we ehoose.to enter itbeiit. Onour diligence and intelligence must tile result depend.