Newspaper Page Text
December, 1914
THE ATLANTIAN
7
self, How would Christ act in my place? And strive to
follow Him. (John x:27).
7. Never believe what you feel if it contradicts God’s
words. Ask yourself, Can what I feel be true if God’s
word is true? And if both cannot be true, believe God
and make your heart the liar. (Rom. iii:4; John v:10-ll).
Credit
Credit is an estimate of your capacity to worry about
paying your bills which is held about you by a lot of total
strangers. Credit is also a belief held of your ability
to pay for something long after you have ceased to de
rive any benefit from it. Credit is likewise a guage of
your willingness to deceive yourself into the belief that
you can afford to buy something because you cannot
pay cash for it. If everybody paid cash, there would
be no bond issues, no huge clerical forces, no national
debts, no armies, or military systems, no schools, such
as exist today, no war, no degenerate fashions—nothing
but plain, everyday living. Credit enables everybody to
live a fictitious existence. Nothing exceeds like credit.
Buying Home Goods
We have an interesting pamphlet from the Toronto
Board of Trade. It states that thousands of Canadian
workmen are unemployed, while Canadians are buying
millions of dollars’ worth of imported articles that might
be made at home. “If the people of this country,” it
adds, “would buy Canadian-made goods exclusively, the
Dominion would be millions of dollars richer and all the
workmen would be back at work.”
That sounds plausible from the Canadian point of
view; but the pamphlet gives a long list of foreign arti
cles that were sold in Canada last year, and the greater
part of those articles came from the United States. Ob
viously if the Dominion is going to stop buying four hun
dred million dollars’ worth of our goods annually—most
ly manufactures—in order to substitute home-made
goods, business here will be worse than it is now, and a
still greater number of our workmen will be forced into
unemployment. So, from our point of view, the Baord
of Trade’s argument has no attractions.
On the other hand, if we are going to buy none but
goods made in the United States, it is absurd to suppose
we can go on indefinitely selling two and a half billion
dollars’ worth of goods to other countries, because, in
the long run, whatever we sell to other countries we must
take out in trade .
In the present extraordinary circumstances we ought
to buy as few foreign goods as possible, because the
greatest customers for our goods will buy from us just
as little as possible; and it is no time to have a balance
of trade against us. As a permanent condition, how
ever, it is impossible to buy nothing from other nations
while continuing to sell to them.—Ex.
Making It Easy
The South has some millions of bales of cotton that
cannot be marketed this year, because war has closed
European mills. To carry this cotton over for a year
was beyond the resources of the cotton slates; yet it
must be carried over to prevent a calamity that would
react on the whole country. So, after much considera
tion, it was proposed that banks all over the country
should subscribe to a fund that should be loaned for a
year on the surplus cotton.
That seemed a sensible arrangement; but no sooner
was it launched than harrowing doubts arose as to
whether the banks, in subscribing to this fund, would
not be violating the antitrust law. This question was
earnestly and Widely debated. The Attorney-General of
the United States gave an official opinion on it, and so
did various other distinguished lawyers.
The best legal opinion was that subscription to the
fund did not constitute a violation of the antitrust law
and did not lay the subscriber open to a term in prison;
but some prospective subscribers still entertained doubts
about it—which, in view of the dubious maze that sur
rounds the subject, could hardly be called unjustified.
We need push the antitrust propaganda only one short
step farther to create a condition under which two gro
cers will not dare to run down the same street for the
purpose of putting out a fire in a third grocer’s store
without first getting a legal opinion as to whether the
act is an undue and criminal restrain of competition.
A Lesson They All Know
At this writing little has been heard of Turkish mili
tary operations. As to the seven other armies—German,
Austrian, French, Russian, Belgian, English and Servian
—each of them, man for man, seems to fight well, to be
well equipped and ably led.
For years each of these belligerents has been devoting
no inconsiderable part of its best intelligence to prepa
ration for war. Germany invented the biggest gun, and
that seems to be the only decided advantage that any one
of them has scored over any other.
In peaceful respects there are great inequalities among
these nations. Compare France’s total contributions to
civilization with Servia’s, or Germany’s with Russia’s;
but when it comes to fighting, one of them can do it sub
stantially as well as any other, and we shall be surprised
if Turkey, on the field, is not about as effective, in pro
portion to her numerical strength, as any of them.
The last twenty years of feverish military competition
in Europe seems to have schooled the whole Continent
about equally in warfare.
Little, Powell, Smith & Goldstein
A new and strong law firm has just been organized
under the title above given. Judge John D. Little and
Judge Arthur Powell are both men too well known in
legal circles here to need any commendation at our
hands. As lawyers, they stand in the front rank. The
third partner, Mr. Marion Smith, was first associated
with his father, Senator Hoke Smith, in the practice,
and since the practical retirement of Senator Smith has
been a member of the firm composed of himself and
Messrs. Marshburn and Ransom. He is withdrawing
from this firm to become a member of the new firm,
which will undoubtedly take rank among the first of the
legal concerns of the City. Mr. Goldstein is personally
unknown to us, but the fact that he is associated with
this firm is a guarantee of his legal ability. The two
senior members have had a very wide experience in the
practice of the law, and Mr. Smith has, considering the
time he has been at the bar, won a reputation for legal
ability second to that of no man of his age in the State.
The success of the new firm is certain.