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Re.,rd and Guiii<5e.
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ucluVlARA.
^ ESTABUSHED-^iWHey^isee.
DEV&|EDToRfA,LEsTA;E.emLoiKo A^cifrrECTUi¥){cwsE«oiDDrai^^
Btfsofess AffoThemes of GEjteRjL lifttfipsi.
PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS.
Published every Saturday.
TBLBFHOHB,......OOBTLAHBT 1870
Oonmtmloatdoua ahonld be addresaed to
C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street.
J. I. LINDSEY. Eusinesa Manager.
"Entered at tke Post-offlce at S'eto Tork, if. T., as second-class -matter."
VOL. LVI.
DECEMBER 7, 1895.
No. 1,447
The Record and Gvjvr will furnish you with daily detailed reports
of all building operations, compiled to snii yotjb business specifically, for
14 cents a day. You are thus kejJt informed of the entire market for yonr
goods. No guess work. Every fact verified. Abnndant capital and the
thirty years'experience of The Record and Gvide guarantee the com¬
pleteness and authenticity of thislservice. Send to 14 and 16 Veeey streei
for information.
CONGRESS has succeeded already iu disappoiutiug the com¬
mercial world. It waa certain tbat President Cleveland
wonld recommend currency reform ou lines suggested by tlie
known policy of the administration on that subject, aud while
no one was foolish enough to believe that anything could be
doue right away, it was hoped that Congress by a prompt ex¬
pression of opinion in favor of providing remedies would at
least relieve the worst anxieties of the community. But there
are uo indications of any actiou whatever that will do good.
Some proposals have been made, but they are like the appear¬
ance of the clowu in the comedy with some ridiculous titeusil
to relieve a case of stage-indisposition. But the public
is in no mood for laughter, eveu if these absurd
proposals were intended merely to amuse. This lack of
disposition on the part of Congress to seriously commit itself to
the task of dealing -with our currency aud financial conditions is
already aftecting busiuess. Reports of dullness come from more
lines and from more directions than before, and in the stock
market there is practically staguatiou, accompauied by gloomy
feelings and anticipations. Each of the political parties seems
to waut first to U[.iset the boat in order that they may have the
credit for heroism by rescuing the lady, typifying the voter,
from a wateiy grave. But as in tbis case the lady is aware of
her admirers' intentions, and has no way of avoiding their exe¬
cution, her position is a very unpleasant one. She knows that
she will be ultimately saved, but the prospect of haviujj to take
a plunge into the water fli'st is as uncheerful as it is absurd. Of
coiu'se the moral is that she ought not to have got into the boat.
This may be of some service when she is again ou terra Anna,
but at the moment it conveys no comfort.
Company, 'd the French market overloaded with her obligations,
atthe saaperial Administrator of Vienna, acting in the place of
can o%gpejj^e(i Town Council, has given concessions for the con-
i^^^uction of electric railways over which the Town Council had
Squabbled for years. No Americans were amoug the competi¬
tors for Vhe construction work.
A REMARKABLE instance of the changes to which the
-^-^ world's trade is subjected is fouud iu the return of im¬
ports and exports of British India iu 1894-5. This is the fact
that Belgium sent to India more steel than Great Britain did.
The latter's Indian iron aud steel trade has undergone consider¬
able mutation through competition from Belgium and Germany.
Compensation is fouud in other directions, because of tlie total
of India's purchases 70 per tent was from Great Britain, an in¬
crease of 2,5 per ceut iu the year, still the ground lost in irou
and steel, ouce so exclusively the British monopoly, is Railing to
the home mauufacturers. With two uuimportant exceptions
the British railways report increases ot earnings for the first five
months of the second half of the year. The production of gold
in Australia from Jauuary to October was equal to an inerease
of $492,080 over the same for a similar period of last year, a
somewhat disappointing result in view of the extent of the de¬
velopments in Western Australia, The French governmeut is
aecui-ing large majorities in the Chamber of Deputies in favor
of the various clauses of the new bill to establish a graded scale
of succession duties. The new scale goes considerably beyond
that recently established in England. The feature is the pro¬
gression in nine steps of the rate applied to legatees in the same
degree of relationship. For heirs iu a direct line it rises from
1 per ceut for sums not exceeding 2,OOOf, to 4 per cent for sume
exceeding 3,000,000f. Between husband and wife it ranges
from 334 to 9 per cent; brothers aud sisters from 8^2 to 14 per
cent; for relatives beyond the fourth degree, that of tirst
cousins, and straugera iu blood, the rate rises frora 14 to 20 per
cent. A Berlin syndicate has undertaken the conversion of cer¬
tain Russian railway loaus to the amount of $40,000,000, the
ftrst importaut Russian operation carried out in Germany lor
ten years. Russia haa renewed her friendship with Germany as
/^NE caunot but be struck, on reading that portion of the Pres-
^^ ideut's message relating to foreign aft'airs, with the grow¬
ing importance of our foreign relations aud with doubt as to
whether we cau as a nation always adopt an independent course
and policy in dealing with semi-barbarous powers. The Mouroe
Doctrine is, in its inception at any rate, a defence of republican
institutions within our own proper territory by limiting thecon-
tiguity of other forms of government supposed to be inimical to
them. This confines its sphere of operation. But we have in¬
terests iu the Behring Sea which are shared with other powers,
and duties iu Turkey and China similar to those of other powers,
though limited at present to the protection of the lives and
property of our own citizens. Questions may arise at no distant
date which ^vill put our duty abroatl in a difl'ereut light than it
has yet stood iu. Suppose, for example, two of the great powers
enter ou au armed dispute as to what shall be done iu Turkey,
in one side of which the interests of our own citizens are in¬
volved. Shall we stand aside to see whether the cause we favor
is triumphant in the hope that the chestnuts will be pulled out
of the flre for Ufi'? And if tbat cause is defeated, what then?
Our chief anxieties at present are for American missionaries and
mission property. Will they always be so proscribed? That
heroic Zulu, Cetshwayo, had a good idea of the logical pro¬
gression of events wheu he remarked : " First come missionary,
then trader, then army." When our trader has followed the
missionary will the army have to be seut to protect him aud, if
so, how is that aruiy to get through the network of privileges
and protective rights that other nations possess over all tbe
world without forcing us into the entangling alliances which
we have hitherto dreaded and continue to dread.
SUSPENDED dividends have provoked discussion—unfor¬
tunately unofficial aud irresponsible, yet probably not with¬
out ultimate value to the investing public—into the way some
commercial undertakings were incorporated and placed upon
the market. The banking houses that produced these issues of
industrial stocks try to shield themselves behind the account¬
ants who certified to the figures on which their statements were
made aud the prospective profits estimated. If, however, the
unfortunate buyers were polled it would assuredly be fouud
that they bought rather on the strength of the bankers' names
than on confidence iu stated results of actuarial investigations.
Au accountant's duty iu such caaes does not extend farther tban
to test the arithmetical correctness of certain showings given
him to examine. If he suspects that the results presented are
not reached honestly aud has anj'' self-respect, he will uot permit
them to go forth to the public with his endorsement. But it is
easy to see that his suspicious must be very strong indeed to
justify him in thus implying au intended fratid ou the part of
the vendors of the business. The duties aud moral responsibili¬
ties of the bankeis who float the concern are mucb wider. It
is they who make the profits of tbe transaction. It is upou
them that (he buyer relies to obtain the worth of his money,
and they ought to see that he gets it, especially as a consider¬
able part ot it goes into their owu pockets. Experience has
shown that a going concern for which a market is sought
through the distribution of shares to the public is a proper ob¬
ject of suspicion and ought to be submitted to the most vigor¬
ous tests for selveucy and ability to make return upou the capi¬
tal. No man is goiug to part with a paying business without-
making somethiug by it. This may be perfectly proper and
legitimate, but we are unfortunately justified by the wrecks
tbat are floating iu the sea of speculation before our eyes, in
doubting it in the tirst instance aud investigating fi'oni the basis
of that doabt. If subsequent investigatiou proves its boua
fides so much the better ; but a mere examination to ascertain
whether the vendor has put dowu two and two to make his sum
of four, particularlv if made by a subordinate accountant,
ought not to remove it, and would not iu the miud of any ex-
lierienced busiuess man. There is no one in the business of
promoting companies and floating securities who docs not kuo^V
this. It can hardly be claimed for those gentlemen that those
of them who have been the agents for the sale of ninny rotten
securities have acted ou this knowledge, and they ought to be
held accountable for their dereliction of duty. It ought tobe
stated while condemning what has gone before that several
firms have honorably done all they could to save their customers
from loss on discovering the faulty character of the securities
in the class they had beeu handling. But the point to be
insisted upon is that the precautions should be taken before
these goods are sold at all. This lesson has no doubt been
learned by the best houses imd it ie hoped will be universally
applied.