Record   and   Guide.





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Vol. XLVII





FEBRUARY  14, 1891.





No. 1,196





THE Btocit market is beginning to show aYmptonis of what Mr.
Gould has often designated as a tired feehng. A great deal
uf talking up the market has been done of late, but the stocks will
not go in the talking direction. The rates of foreign eschange for
some time have been nnusually firm, so much 80 as to cause sur¬
prise among those who have conuted on our H,OOU,000 bales cotton
crop and stoppage of foreign importations as means to cause gold to
flow this way instead of the other. When our gold is taken
without exchange justifying the transaction, it causesan unsettled
feeling among operators as to what may come next. The silver
question, so far as the present Congress is concerned, will soon be
out of the way; and if it be free coinage we shall probably find
that many of our financiers, like our politicians, knew very little
of what they were talking about, and have indulged
in numberless prophecies which will never be realized.
There is no newspaper in New York willing to tell the whole truth
about this question, and it is treated by all just as they treat poli¬
tics, from one side only. How many people knovv that England
must have nearly $50,000,000 in silver every year for shipment to
the Eastern countries, that her indebtedness and export of silver to
Bombay alone laat year was $40,00('.(100, of which amount the
United States furnished neai-ly one-half. In addition to this Eng¬
land for fifteen years has coined little or no silver, liut tor the last
two years was compelled to coin nearly $30,000,000. Every one
ought to know that from I8ii3 tu 1^73 silver commanded every year
at times a small premium over gold, and had it not been for the
demonetization of silver by Germany in 1M74, which was the signal
for the real decline, it would to-day be tmdoubtedly on a parity
with gold. Mr. St. John points nut tliL-fact m a recent pamphlet
that the world's present rates of production of silver bullion is
only 58 per cent as against 42 per cent of gold. Now, with a sure
market in this country for all we can pioduce, with the Eastern
countries demanding yearly nearly twice as mnch as our produc¬
tion, how can it be possible that silver can further depreciate :■■
Here is the table of Ottoman Haupt, who is the highest aulhority
to-day in any country on silver. In this table 1,700,000 kilo¬
grammes of silver is equal to 54,000,000 of om- ounces.

YKAKLT DEUAMD FOE SILVER,

Kilogi'amnies.

United States...................................        1,700,000

India...........................................       l,;3mi,000

China...........................................          400,000

Japan...........................................          ^40,000

Cochin China...................................            ^0,000'

Straits   Settlements.............................          100,000

England and Colonies............................          100.000

Austria........................................          120,00u

Servia and Bulgaria.............................           6u,000

Bala ace ill Mexico.............................           ou.OOO





Industrial Consumption.





4,UMU,000
^50.000





4,64U,000
Now, as against this almost certain demand the, total production
of silver, in 1889, of the world was 3,919,000 kilogrammes. These
are facts and no theory can change them, and if we keep our silver
at horae for a few years it cannot well be proven what we are to
receive for the $650,000,000 gold which we already have, which
so many financiers think England is sm'e to get, but tbey fail to
tell what she will give us for it. Certainly not silver, for where
can it be procured ?





BUSINESS is quiet and steady in Europe. The payment of tbe
Bank of Engliind to the Bauk of France of the last of the
loan of £3,00u,000 removes the only trace of the recent panic tiiat
remains, with the exception, of course, of the Baring guarantee.
The financiers of England are considering whether the trouble
brought to light any defect in the .inancial system of that country;
and -there ie a general concm-rence in the Ghaucellor of the
£ixchequet'a statement that the specie reserves of the joint-stock





banks and the Bank of England are altogether too small for emer¬
gencies. At the same time the proposal of Mr. Goschen to issue
one pound notes based partially on gold and partially on securities
was not 6o well received. It is his intention, if we may judge
from his speech at Leeds, to obtain the consent of Parliament to
emit £1 notes which would gradually take the place of gold coin
in the circulation, A portion of the displaced sovereigns would be
used to constitute a second gold reserve. He also hinted at the
possibility of issuing ten shilling notes against silver. Consider¬
able discussion has been provoked by tbe speech, and not all of it
favorable. In the absence of much disposition to speculate tbe
French financial world is occupied in discussing the proposed
renewal of the Bank of France privilege. The present
charter does not expire imtil 1897, but it has been
customary in the past to attend to the matter, some
considerable time before the necessity .for so doing arises,
The bill leaves the monopoly of the bank untouched, and does no
create any rew restrictions on the independence of Its management.
The bank, however, is made to pay both in money and in eervices
for the renewal of its charter. The privilege is extended for
twenty-three years. Estimates bave been made in the press to
show that the sacrifice imposed on the bank in money will amount
to 4.300,000 francs annually until 1897, and 5,100,000 francs for the
next twenty-three years. In addition tbe bank undertakes to
increase within two years the number of its bfanches from 94 to
lis. Trade reports from the various partsofthe German Empire
do not present any exceptional features, Tht former buoyancy has
disappeared almost everywhere, but its place seems to have been
taken by a regular course of business, moderate in amount but
sufficiently profitable. Meanwhile speculation is rather depressed.
The deliberations between the representatives of Germany and
Austro-Hungary are proceeding without very much hitch, and
good observers say that a commercial treaty will be very surely the

result,

-----------■-----------

PERIODICALLY some one personally interested in the con¬
tinuance of the telegraph in private hands in this country
feels called upon to come forth in defense of the existing system.
The latest advocate to appear in behalf of this giant monopoly is
Mr. Erastus Wiman. His article on "The Nationalizing of the
Telegraph," wliich firat appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated
Newspaper, and 1ms been since given wide circulation by papers
enjoying the patronage of private telegraph companies, is so full
of error aud misleading statements that we cannot pass it over in
silence. In ibis article Mr. Wiman resuiTects the old charges
against the government postal telegraph of Great Britain—more
than once shown to be groundless in the colums of The Record
AND Guide—tbat that system as compared with private telegraphs
in the United States is inefficient and operated at a dead loss, and
tbatsince the government of England took charge of the system no
progress has been made in electrical science. The first and last of
these three charges are directly contradicted by English official
reports, and the second charge is true only on its face. In point of
reliability and promptness of delivery the telegraph service of the
Ut-ited Kingdom is nowhere else surpassed. Private telegraph
companies in the United States have never succeeded in sending as
great number of messages in a given time as have been carried by
the British system in the same time. The postal telegraph system
of Great Britain caiTies each year 54,000,000 messages, as against
80,000,000 carried by private companies in this country. Considering
tbe difference in the areas and population of these two countries,
it would seem that the British lines bave been developed to a com¬
paratively high degree of efficiency. Undoubtedly greater encour¬
agement is given to invention in the United States than in Eng¬
land ; but it i'* not true that " there has been no progress whatever
in electrical science in England siuce the government took hold of
the telegraph.'' Through engineers in the service of the Postal
Telegraph department, the old apparatus in use at the time of the
transfer to the government has been thDroughly remodeled after
improved methods and new apparatus introduced whenever a sub¬
stitution was found practicable. The Delany multiplex apparatus
has been in use in England for some time. It has pot been intro¬
duced in this country yet. Private companies in this country have
only begun to use tbe Wheatsone automatic instrument which is
now in common use in Great Britain,





PROGRESS in electrical science may be farther advanced in this
country than in England, but in the apphcation of the
science for the benefit of the people at large we are far behind our
relative across the water. Locked up in thevaults of tbe Western
Union Telegraph Co. are a number of new and valuable inventions
pertaining to telegraphy, which if introduced would greatly increase
the efficiency of the service in this country. Tbese inventions are
not put into use because of the heavy expense connected witb tbeir
introduction. Efficiency of service is sacrificed to private greed.
One word as to the charge tiiat Ihe postal telegraph of England is
operated at a loss. It is true that each year since the government
introduced the siatenay rate the money receipts from tbe postal