SITUATION IN U.S.A.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17105, 29 March 1921, Page 10

SITUATION IN U.S.A.

BUSINESS RECOVERY GRADUAL. (from otm own correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, March 1. Although the United States is seething with unemployment on a vast scale, representatives of "Big Business" havo commenced a campaign of endeavouring to reassure the general public that the crest of the storm caused by the slump in prices has passed and the real period of stabilising conditions has set in. It is somewhat difficult to convince the populace that such is the case, but one of the leaders of this campaign of optimism who has been consistently preaching the gospel of hopefulness iu the economic situation of America, is Mr Francis IT. Sisson, the vice-president of the Guaranty Trust Company of New York. Mr Sisson believes that the readjustments in business that Americans arc now passing through are but laying tho foundations for a better and more enduring prosperity tlian the American nation has ever known in its history. "All that is necessary for us to capitaliso our vast possibilities," he says, "is the vision to see our opportunities and t'he will to accomplish the task that confronts us. There is not only ample need, but, far more important, ample reason for sane optimism. "Because of world conditions and their influence upon us, business recovery here in the United States is naturally gradual —but all the better for that. It. is a matter of national congratulation, however, that there are abundant indications that the tide in our business affairs has unmistakably turned. "Confidence has been restored, and, very important, the latest reports from agricultural districts disclose the fact that the plight of our farmers generally is not as bad as we had been led to believe at first ; despite the precipitate fall in the price of farm products. Crops are being marketed gradually, and t)h at means that newly-created wealth is being made available to the nation. Buying has begun again. More, industrial plants are reopening. "Transportation facilities have been considerably improved since the railways were returned to private control, through greater efficiency in their use. "Bank reserves have been materially strengthened, and banking conditions, in common with fundamental business conditions, are sound and have been greatly bettered recently through the more accelerated movement of agricultural products to market and through the more rapid liquidation of paper held by the banks." The Price Decline. According to the Department of Labour index, wholesale commodity prices have fallen in the year to January, 1921, by 16$ per cent., and those of retail food prices by 5 l-3rd "per cent. Wholesale price declines in the United States have averaged 35 per cent., and retail prices considerably less. It is clear that in Canada prices have been much steadier, and that retailers in. particular have not generally been forced to pass on to their customers the full benefit of wholesale price deolines. This is one of the factors that have kept business improvement back. Occasionally a retailer will take stock of the situation and decide to mark all prices at replacement values, which is the policy of giving the customer full benefit of wholesale price declines, but frequently the policy adhered to is a determination to make the public take off the higher cost stocks at the old values. Dull business can be blamed chiefly on the holding up of inflated values somewhere in trade channels. The wartime habit of looking for large profits arid expecting people' to be accommodating as purchasers evidently dies hard. Wages have been cut in most lines of industry throughout the United States, the latest to accept the reductions being those employed in the building trades, their decrease being around 22J per cent. Despite tho fact that < the price of newsprint has come down in America to 5 7-lOths ner pound, most of the Western American dailies have boosted their prices 25 per cent to monthly subscribers, and on account of William Randolph Hearst in, San Francisco seeking to withdraw the customary bonus, of 50 cents to a dollar paid to his corps of newsboys, a strike has been precipitated, the "newsies" declaring war on the San Francisco "Examiner" and "Chronicle." Hearst is reputed to have made a profit annually of over a million dollars from his San Francisco "Examiner" alone, yet he does not deign to denude the ra'gged "newsies" of a bare livelihood. Want Alimony Reduced. America, notorious for its thousands of divorces monthly, is feeling tho effect of hard times among the divorce colony, and it seems that the alimony club has fallen upon harsh days. "The spending orgy is over, and now follows a national headacho," says one authority on the vexatious subject! "Judge, I can't pay it; business is bad. I will bring my books into Court, your Honour. Nothing but cancellations and —- —" An hour spent in the Chicago divorce court enables the casual visitor to hear the woeful chant of 'the alimony 'club. It is the most popular song in domestio relations to-day. It is a refrain so filled with minors—as the musicians say—that the miserere oh the same instrument would seem a jaazy interlude, comments one observer. The gay young bricklayer who found life so exuberant a few months ago that he could not stay married to the wife of his bosom is now dragging- his feet into Court asking for alimony reduction. The business man whose big'profits led him away from his own hearthstone and into membership in the alimony club, is now trying to make tho judge realise that this is the period of readjustment—of "normalcy,'' as President Harding prates about. Chicago judges, were turning a wary ear to .these complaints on a certain Monday. There were scores of them—and have been '.'so for months. Judg-3 Joseph J. Sabath, who hears divorce year in and year out, listened patiently to the talented, young attorney for a divorced clothing retailer. Tho man would starve if the Court did not reduce his He had to pay alimony more than half of his net income. He had borrowed from the bank to meet his payments. He had- borrowed on his life insurance. Now his health was jeopardised, just from worry over his alimony. Why, he, the attorney, offered on' behalf" of his client to take the woman back. He would remarry her. This would be cheaper than alimony, he inferred. There was a silvery tinkle in tho courtroom. It was the divorced wife laughing. > "The lady can well laugh," said the attorney. "Right now she is working as a cloak and suit sales-woman ; ans making as much money as my client.Besides that she gets half of my client's income right now. He can't live on it, while she is in luxury." Judge Sabath took the attitude that business was going to pick, ud. He doubted business was as dull as painted. "Anyway, a man who has been in business for years ought to be making more than 35 dollars a week,'' he remarked. "His name is still over the door. If he is not making more than 35 dollars a week my tjuggestion is that ho get busy and do something else. If his wife needs 23 dollars a week, let him 2et -a, job where he can make 46 dollars." In one case a man testified he was now making 20 dollars a week, and had to pay 25 dollars a week alimony. He .was a solicitor—a peddling salesman—before tho readjustment period, he

said. Alimony was easy then, but now . . . Judge Harry A. Lewis was justwmdin<r up thirty divorce cases that had been his Monday docket. Tho docket was sprinkled with applications for reduced alimony. "Some of the cases deserve reductions, but some of them conio in with the plea that times are awful and never will be better," he said. "These applications are a part of the readjustment period. "Wo have to watch them closely, because while some men are hit hard by conditions,- we cannot grant applications that will work hardships on the wives and children."