U.S. POLICY.
Meanwhile, other nations besidei Great Britain were making a miscalculation of the position.'. In the matter of profiteering first place must certainly be given to the United States. To an extent which it could scarcely help, it gained enormous war profits during the four years of the conflict, while after the War it profited for years by the huge orders from the belligerent countries and from the markets which it had captured during the years of its neutrality. War debts by the Allies were settled on lines which appeared to assure to the United States a colossal annual revenue for generations to come and huge Budget surpluses in the U.S. were the order of the day. Not content, -however, with phenomehal trade activity and prosperity, plus the heavy toll levie&fuyon the Allies in the shape •of war debts, -the United States (Continued on page 954.)
Finance—Public and Private
(Continued from page 952.) Government did its utm ost to prevent those debts being discharged through the medium of an exchange of goods and services, by heaping up its tariff walls higher and higher. Misled by its own exceptional -prosperity, it encouraged mass production on an unprecedented scale throughout the States, and by a system of instalment payments consumption demands were also forced to extravagant heights. Then with the profits arising out of these transactions Wall Street indulged in the most extensive speculative operations that have ever been known even at that centre, so that at the height of the boom we had the wealthiest country of the world not only receiving tribute in War debts from Europe, but actually attracting money to finance the Wall Street gamble. Finally, be it noted that in addition to these almost innumerable disturbing factors calculated to weaken confidence, there has been political unrest in many parts of the world, and Peace Pacts and Geneva Con. ferences notwithstanding, apprehensions with regard to the maintenance of international peace have played, and are playing, their part in delaying a return to more normal conditions.
ARTHUR W. KIDDY.
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