ARMY OF MILLIONAIRES.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 November 1919, Page 11

ARMY OF MILLIONAIRES.

"WE THINK IN BILLIONS NOW." America has just discovered that she is wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, says the New York correspondent of the Weekly Dispatch. An inquiry into the amount of money at present in possession of the United States reveals figures which are staggering. For instance, bankers had figured it might be possible to raise about a billion sterling during the last year by loans for war purposes. The amount actually raised was more than three times that sum. America has doubled the value of her foreign trade since the beginning of the war, and she has been able to buy back £800,000,000 worth of American securities previously held in Europe.

"We don't talk in millions any longer," said a well-known financial expert to me. "It's billions all the time."

America began to make money almost tit the outbreak of, the Avar, for it was iu the autumn of 1011 when the first orders for munitions came from Europe. munition boom went on through 1915 and 1918, with an effect on many industries which seemed little short of miraculous. The stock of the great Bethlehem Steel Company, which in the early days could be bought for less titan two figures, rose sky-high in three years. Some time after the boom began one of the directors of the company sold most of his holding at about SO, thinking lie had made a very satisfactory profit. The shares eventually went over COO points higher. FARMERS' WEALTH. The effects of this extraordinary prosperity are felt in dozens of industries. Even the farmers began to accumulate wealth. In the days before the war "dollar wheat" was the dream of every American farmer. The price is now fixed at two dollars and a-quarter per bushel, and the value of this year's wheat crop is estimated at two and three-quarter billion dollars. Having made so much money, farmers have been able to pay off their mortgages. Even then they had much more money to spend. So had hundreds of thousands of other people in all kinds of industries. The result was a boom in the luxury trades. It was only recently that these people turned their attention to the stock markets. Now it is impossible to keep them out of it. 'Manicures, bootblacks, shop-keepers, clerks, professional men, ete., have been revelling ill tlie thrills of excited speculation. So many hundreds have made fortunes that an entirely new class of millionaires has been created. Stocks that nobody had ever heard of before were bought and "boosted" to dizzy heights by these joyful gamblers. Here are three instances: One man who. owned a. fruit stall in a.

street saved a few hundred dollars during the war. A few weeks ago he drew it out of the bank and went Into the stock market. He no\v boasts a bank balance of thousands, and is comfortable for life, HOW RICHES CAME.

Another man holding a secretarial position in a silk factory had invested his small savings in his employer's company. Before the war- he bad settled down in a decent middle-class suburb in a house which lie had bought himself. If in those days he had suddenly appeared with a 'Ford car his neighbors would have been startled; but since January last he has bought no fewer than three automobiles, has bought the plots of land on each side of his house, jso that no one can build on them to the detriment of the amenities of his own house, and has engaged a butler to further dignify the establishment. Finally, there is the Turkish bath attendant who the week before last netted 20,000 dollars. And still it goes on. Recently, when the rate of interest on brokers' loans was suddenly put up to 15 per cent., the market prices came down with a run, wiping out the margins of hundreds of small speculators, who were forced to sell their shares. These were immediately snapped up by professional operators. But the following day, when the interest rate fell to 5 per cent and prices recovered, they returned undismayed for another plunge.