How long a time that must be will depend entirely upon the sharpness of the break in the economic life of Europe, and the amount of supplies they have on hand, which, as they will not now need them at home, they will be anxious to sell in the United States.  Indeed, it would not be surprising if there was for a short time a glut of English and French manufactured goods in the United States market.

Europe May Depend On Us.

Of late years the commercial relationship between the United States and Europe has changed very greatly.  For centuries we were a debtor community, buying largely from Europe, possessed only of crude staple products for export, and scarcely able by a series of expedients and exchanges to pay for what we bought.  Tobacco for many decades, then cotton, were the only commodities of which much was exported direct to Europe.  Then came, during the European famines of 1846, 1861, and 1862, an enormous demand for American grain.  Yet only during the last few decades have we been able to export largely manufactured products or been able to deal with Europe on an equality of terms.  We are no longer a debtor nation; we are no longer dependent upon Europe; the United States is an integral and essential part of the interdependent international economic fabric.  Indeed, if the war continues ten years, Europe may be dependent upon us.

In a sense we are not ready to meet the crisis.  During the last ten or fifteen years the exports of foodstuffs have fallen off greatly, and the supply in this country has actually declined in proportion to population.  There has been also a most marked increase in the exports of manufactured goods and a decided increase in the importation of raw materials, including foodstuffs.  Now will come an enormous demand from Europe for the very things of which we have not produced so much and exported little or nothing—­bacon, eggs, butter, beef.  The demand will also be greatly increased for woolen cloth, raw leather, shoes, steel in all its forms, railroad equipment of all sorts, automobiles and machinery, and, in particular, coal and gasoline.  To supply this demand old industries will be expanded and new ones created, and a shift of capital and labor will inevitably take place to the industries for which a demand becomes clear in Europe, as soon as it seems reasonably certain that the war will last, beyond the present year.

An American Merchant Marine.

Above all, an American merchant marine is likely to be seen again upon the seas.  There will be German ships in plenty for sale, in all probability, unless Germany wins an immediate victory on the sea, and the advantage of an unquestioned neutral status, easily obtained by a bona-fide purchase, will be so great that American capital will probably invest largely in freight steamers and ocean liners.  It seems entirely unlikely that England, while she remains mistress of the seas, should recognize as valid the