ment is as unwise today as it was two thousand years ago.

On March 1, the money in circulation in this country was $5,092,530,682 as against $4,583,695,870 the same date a year ago. Based on an estimated population of 105,293,000 the per capita circulation was $48,37 compared with $47.23 on February 1, 1918. Certainly the country is not suffering from a lack of circulating medium. Whether it is from a superfluity of it may be the question.

If inefficiency was not pointed out by senatorial investigations, why were many changes made and more suggested by the Secretary of War and the Administration? Was the record by the executive branch one of efficiency before Congress applied the spur? In the light of experience would the Overman bill, if enacted, make sure that places of great responsibility would be filled by men of the highest demonstrated ability?

Who was correct in fixing last summer the price of coal, Secretary Lane or Secretaries Baker and Daniels? If the latter were, why has it been necessary to raise the price first to $2.45 and later to $3.05 for coal mined in the Pennsylvania fields? The latter price is five cents higher than that agreed to by Secretary Lane over which Mr. Baker and Mr. Daniels waxed so roth. Was not the profiteering "cry" pressed a bit too hard by Mr. Daniels and Mr. Baker?

"Let us go on with this war in con

fidence and courage until we shall have conquered the foe by an organized military power stronger than his own. And, let us take our mood from Shakespeare: 'In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility, but when the blast of war blows in our ears, stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage, and imitate the action of the tiger.'"

Evidence now in possession of the Government is said to show that the Hamburg-American people in the United States were really making war on the American merchant marine while we were supposed to be at peace with Germany and loyally holding our neutrality. There is evidence that many a ship went from the United States with bombs which were surreptitiously hidden in her cargo and which had been manufactured on the interned Hamburg-American ships.

Notwithstanding the sugar shortage in New England last year, the difficulty of purchasing sugar except in restricted quantities and the campaign to save that commodity for our armies and Allies, the per capita consumption in the United States in 1917 was about 88.3 pounds, an increase of nearly four pounds over the average for the five-year period ended in 1916. The increase is attributed by the Department of Agriculture in part to increased manufacture for export of condensed milk, and an increase of consumers' stocks.

Figures compiled for the Director General of Railways indicate that the five-day coal saving campaign in New York City saved $31,500,395 worth of coal, at the cost of $357,498,000 in wages and over a billion loss of production. For eighteen leading cities. the economy of coal totaled $137,000,000, and the loss of wages $1,221,415,000. The manufacturers' loss exIceeded three billions. Each dollar's worth of coal cost labor $9 in wages, and employers $23 in production. There are no authoritative figures for the entire country, nor is the cost of coalless Mondays known with any precision.

If the statistical review of the cost of producing the cotton crop of 1917, which was prepared by the Watkins Bureau is correct, the average cost of producing cotton was 11.28 cents per pound; the average price paid the planter was 27.5 cents per pound, and the average profit to the Southern farmer on his cotton crop was $31.55 per acre, many clearing $100 or better. Even with the increased cost of labor and all other items the report concludes that cotton growing is profitable when sold at 20 cents a pound. The average cost of production ranged from 7.11 cents in New Mexico to 13.10 cents in Virginia.

Professor George Trumbull Ladd of New Haven says that three enemies more to be dreaded than our desperate foes on the battlefield are: First, "a Government divided against itself, refusing to cut red tape and commit itself to the men who know, and slow to part with servants who,

however well meaning, have proved themselves incompetent for their exacting tasks; second, the shortsighted selfishness of those workmen and employers who are more interested in their own gains than in bringing the war to a successful and speedy close; and, third, the fainthearted pacifists, whether they belong to the Bolshevist crowd or to other associations or even to some religious denominations who are advocating an unfinished work, just approaching completion, or above all, the bribed pro-German crowd who are doing that country's dirty work no less effectively than they formerly did by arson, bomb-throwing and bomb-placing and by diplomatic intrigue against us in foreign countries."

Between the outbreak of the war on August, 1914, to January 1, 1918, the total exports from this country to Great Britain, France and Italy of wheat and wheat flour were equivalent to 348,000,000 bushels, or an average of 110,000,000 bushels per year. Exports of pork and pork products totaled 2,000,000,000 pounds, while the sugar exports to those countries averaged 648,000,000 pounds. Oats totaled 212,751,000 bushels, corn 24.310,000 bushels and rye 3,618.000 bushels. Exports of fresh beef amounted to 443.484,000 pounds in the three and one-half years, while exports of butter totaled 29,000,000 pounds; cheese, 103.500,000 pounds, and condensed milk, 126,000,000 pounds. Cottonseed, linseed, and other oil products and by-products to be used for feeding cattle totaled 611.000.000 pounds. Who has the hardi

hood now to deny that the war's effect upon our exports has been tremendously stimulating and that the huge totals of our foreign trade are more due to war than to Democratic legislation?

Mr. C. C. McChord, member of the Interstate Commerce Commission, was quoted in the papers as saying that there are many industries which, though not working primarily on war supplies, are essential to the successful prosecution of the war. "These industries," Mr. McChord said, "must be kept in a healthy condition to insure the financing of the war." The success of future Liberty loans will depend on whether these industries are kept running," he declared, "for people who subscribe for the loans must have their wages paid regularly before they can subscribe." In the papers of the same date the Federal Reserve Board issued a plea for wartime economy in which the public was told that "it is more respectable in such war times as confront us to be seen in old clothes than in new ones." "Let the people everywhere," it said, "be encouraged to consume fewer things and let those be the simple and substantial things." If the advice of the Federal Reserve Board is accepted and acted upon, how will the industries which Mr, McChord says should. be kept running at top speed, be kept at that notch, or kept going at all?

in the country that the consumption of foodstuffs which the Food Administration attempted by various devices to reduce, has risen greatly. In other words, prosperity and high wages have defeated in part the objects which Mr. Hoover set out to obtain, although many families are voluntarily consuming less than ever before and the saving from meatless and wheatless days has been very considerable. To make the conservation policy a more pronounced success, it is proposed to apply more compulsion, especially to managers of public eating places, hotels, manufacurers of foodstuffs and finished articles and the distributors of them. It is regrettable that the people of the country are not thoroughly alive to the necessity of saving food to help a cause for whose success they profess to be greatly concerned. such a purpose they should be willing and anxious to curb their appetites and abstain from foods needed by the underfed people of France who have fought our battle for nearly four years.

For

While the exports of the United States, which consisted largely of war materials and supplies for the armies in France, amounted during the past year to more than double the total exports of Great Britain, the latter country's exports of cotton yarns and textiles totaled $730,000,000 and those of the United States were slightly in excess of $150,000,000. If while bearing the brunt of a gigantic world war and with only one arm free Great Britain can nevertheless accomplish

such a result, does it not suggest what the country can and will accomplish in times of peace when both her hands will be free? Yet there are some who, notwithstanding the vital necessity of the textile industry to the industrial independence of the United States, and notwithstanding the services rendered by it to the country in clothing the army and the civilian population, are anxious to expose it and other equally important industries to the keenness of international competition. Will the voters be so forgetful of services rendered and the folly of dependence upon foreign supplies as to rally behind these free trade internationalists and agree to keep the tariff bars down so that both friends and foes, as well as neutrals in this war, shall be able to enter and occupy this greatest market of the world?

Secretary McAdoo striving to add to his already tremendous power the right to select the directors of his proposed national finance corporation, urged as a reason for the grant to him of this unusual privilege that "if it is known that the President is to make these appointments Senators and others will bring political pressure to bear on him to appoint men from their states as directors of the corporation. Appointment by the President and confirmation by the Senate always have a tendency to result in political appointments." Perhaps one of the worst offenders in this line is Secretary McAdoo himself who is responsible for the mess resulting from his "insistence upon the appointment of an incompetent ad

miralty lawyer as chairman of the Shipping Board, which was entrusted with the vital task of producing ships fast enough to take our troops to France, to carry foodstuffs to our Allies and supplies of all kinds to our own men on the battlefront." That mattered not to the political manager of the Administration who was more intent on "pulling off" a political appointment and paying a supposed political debt than he was in having the Shipping Board produce prompt and satisfactory results. "For months it was a dismal failure, a farce and almost a crime," as it was well described by a prominent Senator in a recent speech. Judged by his record Mr. McAdoo was not the man to be entrusted with this unusual power in the country's crisis.

WOOL AND SHODDY.

A good deal of interest has been taken in the article on Wool and Shoddy, written for the Boston Traveler by Sands Chipman, which appeared in our last issue. Suggestions in connection with this article were freely offered by the staff of this office and much valuable material was gleaned from a pamphlet by Samuel S. Dale, to whom credit is due for his painstaking investigation of the shoddy question and his forceful presentation of the facts. We take pleasure in acknwledging our indebtedness to Mr. Dale and to the Traveler as well as to Mr. Chipman, formerly of the Traveler staff, who put the material together in such readable form.

DEATH OF FREDERICK AYER

Mr. Frederick Ayer, first president of the American Woolen Company and one of Boston's ablest business men died at Thomasville, Georgia, on March 14, at the advanced age of 95 years.

Mr. Ayer was born in Ledyard, Conn., Dec. 8, 1822, the son of a commissioned officer, who fought in the War of 1812, and a descendant of John Ayer, who came from England and settled in Haverhill, Mass., in 1632. He attended a private academy in Baldwinsville, N. Y., where he afterward became a clerk in the local general store. In 1855 he went into business with his brother, Dr. James C. Ayer, in the manufacture of proprietary medicines at Lowell.

In 1871 Mr. Ayer and his brother bought the controlling interest in the Tremont Mills and the Suffolk Manufacturing Company of Lowell, and consolidated the two companies under the name of Tremont & Suffolk Mills. In 1885 Mr. Ayer purchased the Washington Mills, in Lawrence, becoming Treasurer of the company he reorganized.

He was one of the principal organizers of the American Woolen Company in 1899 and was its first President, resigning in 1905. He was also one of the organizers of the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, of which he was a Director until 1896, when he resigned.

Mr. Ayer was one of the organizers, and for several years Treasurer of the Lake Superior Ship Canal and Railway and Iron Company. At the

time of his death he was a Director of the Columbian National Life Insurance Company, the American Woolen Company, the International Trust Company, the J. C. Ayer Company, the Tremont and Suffolk Mills, the Boston Elevated Railroad Company, and the Lowell & Andover Railroad Company, which he organized many years ago.

He was married in 1858 at Syracuse, N. Y., to Miss Cornelia Wheaton. His first wife having died in 1878, he later married Miss Ellen Banning of St. Paul, Minn.

Mr. Ayer was a man of creative genius, a born leader and builder. His life enriched his city, his state and his country. When such men die a power and an influence for good are lost to the world.

CANADA'S PART IN THE WAR.

From a population half a million smaller than Pennsylvania's Canada has raised 500,000 troops, of whom 400,000 have already crossed the sea. The man loss among those sent "over there" has been 50 per cent. Canada's war debt exceeds a billion dollars. When the United States has 6,000,000 men in uniform, 5,000,000 in Europe and a casualty list of 2,500,000 we shall have matched what Canada has already done.

We are beginning to do what Canada has been doing in a proportionate way for three years.

The circulation of the vast sums of money raised and expended in Canada has created a high tide of prosperity there. Sir Thomas White, in an address to a loan mass