Exports of sugar have gone forward to the Allies on the same vast scale. In 1913 our entire export trade absorbed only 14,995,232 pounds of sugar. In 1915 we sent to Great Britain, France, and Italy alone 860,456,311 pounds; in 1916, 1,126,022,067 pounds; in 1917, 519,881,377 pounds. No wonder the sugar bowl disappeared from the American restaurant table last Fall and still remains in strict seclusion!
SOLDIERS AND CHEWING GUM
Not only have we been rendering the Allies a useful service by supplying so important a portion of their necessary food and munitions of war, but we have been for some months forwarding troops to the battleline. No figures are given out regarding movements of troops, but there is a significant bit of evidence in the monthly summaries of foreign commerce which proves that the number of American fighters abroad must be very large. As the Government has published this evidence, there can be no harm in referring to it here.
Gum is not chewed by Europeans, but seems to be regarded as a necessary of life in the United States, if the wagging jaws to be seen in street cars and other public places are any indication. Well, according to Government figures, no chewing gum whatever was exported in 1915; but in the calendar year 1917 the value of chewing gum exported was $1,403,888! The figures given, being at wholesale prices, represent upward of 176,000,000 cuds! Even on the most liberal allowance; so vast a quantity would supply a great many fighting men.
Viewed from another standpoint, these chewing-gum statistics are even more encouraging. If the shortage of cargo space to allied ports were as desperate as Germany's press agents would have us believe, it does not seem reasonable to suppose that any part of it would be frittered away on chewing gum in such formidable quantities. This conviction is strengthened by the discovery that exports of candy have increased one-third in the three calendar years of war, to a total of $2,108,081 in 1917.
Most gratifying of all is the fact that despite the utmost endeavors of the submarines, and notwithstanding upward of 3,000 strikes in American shipyards last year, the capacity and efficiency of transatlantic shipping increases from day to day not only positively but also negatively by the withdrawal of the heavy tonnage formerly serving enemy countries through contiguous neutral nations.
True, exports fell off somewhat for the eight months ended Feb. 28, 1918; but Europe received 63 per cent. of the total. Now when Europe is spoken of it means substantially England, France, and Italy. Russia obtained very little in those eight months, and Germany's neutral neighbors still less. The shrinkage in the volume of supplies to our fighting partners was not so much on account of anything the submarines could do as because of the temporary breakdown of our own system due to extraordinarily severe weather and to other causes.
Now the weather handicap has been lifted, our industrial machine has been geared up and more ships have been placed where they could render the most effective service. While in February, 1918, we could send our allies only 750,000 tons of food, which was 50,000 tons less than their minimum requirements, in the next month this was increased to 1,100,000 tons.