this unshaken confidence was due to the prolonged period of liquidation and re- trenchment which has been gradually de- flating speculative values of all kinds for eighteen months; mainly, however, the total lack of any panicky feeling is trace- able to the firm conviction that, sooner or later, the European conflagration must stimulate the demand for and enhance the prices of Western products. Though many cargoes of the Inland Empire’s heavy wheat crop, of the exceptional Californian barley harvest were held at the wharves owing to lack of bottoms to carry the freight, few shippers expected a prolonged embargo on cereals. They reasoned that a sharp, short war, coming at the very beginning of the European harvest, must inevitably cause a heavy shrinkage of the entire Euro- pean yield owing to insufficient labor, and that cessation of hostilities would see a rise in values that would more than compen- sate owners of grain for the accumulated storage charges and the higher freight costs. With a prolonged war, both this year’s and next year’s European crops would suffer and America, for a considera- tion, would be called upon to make good the deficiency.
Advantages Expected
The temporary breakdown of the marine carrying trade did not worry the shippers. An early British victory over the German fleet would clear the Atlantic lanes and enable the carriers of England, Norway, Sweden and France to reopen communica- tion between America and all of “Europe except the Germanic nations. Should the destruction of the German fleet be delayed, the prompt action of Congress and the President in opening American registry to foreign-built ships would alleviate the worst of the congestion. The practical elimination of the French olive, walnut and prune crops, it was maintained, would help to increase the prices of California’s soil products. The opening of the Panama Canal shortly after the outbreak of the war was a strong factor in maintaining con- fidence on the Pacific Coast. All the ad- vantages expected through the shortening of the distances to the Atlantic Coast and to Europe were intensified by the crisis.
The mills and lumber camps of the North- west, having reduced operations last De- cember and again early in July, were pre- pared for the emergency. They will be ready to fill European orders as soon as peace returns and reparation of the damage begins. The copper industry felt the slump in the European demand sooner and more heavily than any other branch of mining, half of its output being exported, but the process of rebuilding that will follow the passage of the destructive war cloud is supplying the silver lining. The fisheries of the Pacific Northwest, depending almost exclusively upon America for their market,- were not affected to a noticeable degree by the crisis. Californian fuel oil is bringing forty cents a barrel, the best price in four years, though the accumulating stock of light refining oil forced a cut before war was declared. Financing of Californian oil companies by British capital was suspended.
The beet-sugar factories of California, Utah, Idaho and Colorado felt the stim- ulus of war when sugar suddenly ceased to follow the downward revision of the tariff and shot sharply upward as a result of the impending loss of a beet-sugar cutput exceed- ing eight billion pounds in Germany, Russia, Austria and France.
Though the export of cereals, canned goods, dried fruit, wine, hops and lumber from the West Coast was practically at a standstill the first ten days in August, pro- ducers and shippers sustained no _ losses which will not be wiped out sooner or later through the inevitable rise in prices. Since meat, butter and egg imports from Aus- tralia, New Zealand and China have prac- tically ceased and as the fresh fruit market was not disturbed, producers of perishable commodities did not worry.
For American manufactured products the European market will, of course, be practically closed for some time to come, with the compensating advantage that Europe, having ceased to manufacture, will temporarily abandon the American market and leave American industry a free field at home, in the orient and in South America. Coupled with the total cessation of immigration and the exodus of thousands of alien reservists the average man’s job should be reasonably safe regardless of Europe’s bloody nightmare.
Our Marine Blunder Revealed
The outbreak of the war did what fifteen years of agitation had failed to accomplish; it brought home to every portion of the
