Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/232

210 the country. But automobile building itself has been overdone, and much of the new capital invested in it will be lost. At the end of 1920 the country was equipped to build 2,750,000 automobiles per annum. The present capacity is perhaps 3,000,000. Conservative estimates of the probable market range from 1,500,000 per annum down to 1,000,000. As between those figures there need be no serious argument, for in either case it is obvious that there is a great surplus of manufacturing capacity which will cease to have value for the purpose for which it was provided.

The war resulted in many developments of this nature. A classic example may be cited from the zinc industry. In 1914 we had plant for making about 400,000 tons of spelter per annum, which was ample for meeting our consumptive demand, including peak loads. In 1915 Europe bid the price of zinc up to fantastic prices, and in two years we increased our spelter producing capacity to 800,000 tons. Zinc producing companies thought they were making enormous profits. Their books and their statements to the Bureau of Internal Revenue showed that they were. But really the zinc industry as a whole, was not doing any such thing. In fact, Europe in the guise of high prices for spelter and large apparent profits to the producers was furnishing them with the capital to build new plant for temporary use with the clear vision on the part of everybody that much, if not all of it, would soon have to be thrown away. Experience confirmed this expectation, for at the end of the war the United States was estimated to have 400,000 tons of good zinc smelting plant for which there would be no further use. Individual corporations are in the position