Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/205

Rh prosecuting the war. As I have shown, the physical wealth of the United States did not increase materially during this period. We diverted to warfare the surplus of goods and labor, the surplus over and above what we required for living, instead of using it to build railways, houses, etc. Most of this surplus we, ourselves, employed, marking it up on our books at high prices, and a portion of it we sold to our European associates, also at high prices. Roughly, the scale of prices was about twice that of 1913.

Therefore, if we exact full payment of the face of the debt, and secure it, we are going to get the benefit of inflation of prices that we have already lost, or are losing, within our own national confines, and we shall get it at the expense of our associates, who were fighting in the common interest. I may perhaps clarify the idea by reference to a purely internal affair. A part of our own national war expense was the building of a great fleet of steamships at total cost of about three billion dollars, the average cost of the ships constructed having been upward of $200 per deadweight ton. Following the war some of these ships were sold to private parties at about that price, the notes of the purchasers being accepted. Since then there has been a debâcle in shipping, which has declined to $30 or $40 per ton, and we see that we shall have to write off two-thirds or three-fourths, or perhaps more, of this investment as a war cost. In doing so, shall we hold the unfortunate, early purchasers of a few ships to their bargains? Already they are pleading for abatement of their obligations, and if that be granted it will not be without ordinary commercial precedent. But quite apart from precedent, why should not we write down as a war