Heligoland is not a big island, but England would have been
glad to buy it back during the war at a high price per square yard.
American industries employing over two million men and women and
producing over three billion dollars' worth of products a year are
dependent upon dyes. Chief of these is of course textiles, using more
than half the dyes; next come leather, paper, paint and ink. We have
been importing more than $12,000,000 worth of coal-tar products a year,
but the cottonseed oil we exported in 1912 would alone suffice to pay
that bill twice over. But although the manufacture of dyes cannot be
called a big business, in comparison with some others, it is a paying
business when well managed. The German concerns paid on an average 22
per cent. dividends on their capital and sometimes as high as 50 per
cent. Most of the standard dyes have been so long in use that the
patents are off and the processes are well enough known. We have the
coal tar and we have the chemists, so there seems no good reason why we
should not make our own dyes, at least enough of them so we will not be
caught napping as we were in 1914.
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