June 17,1898





Record  and   Guide.





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Vol. li.





JUNE 17, 1898.





No. 1,318





THE financial event of the week has, of course, been the action
of the associated banks in preparing to issue Clearing House
certificates should they be needed. It is hirdly necessary to say
that tlie result of this action has been anything but reassuring. It
may be taken either to indicate the precarious condition of the
banks or as part of a policy to secure theiepealof the Sherman
Silver law. If it is only intended to influence the members of the
coming Congress or to force an earlier assembly of that body than
is yet promised it is a most unwise move and the banks are likely to
feel its reactive effects. If iC really indicates the need of the
banks for an enlargement of the circulating medium it is
a 'warning of what may be expected in the money
market and in quotations for securities. That this move
has been followed by a rally in the few stocks now active
does not prove that it is in any way effective for good, because
the market is so narrow and outside buainess so small that
a movement either way is easily made by the professional element
preponderating on tho long or short side. It ig significant
of this peculiarity of the market that while a few active specula¬
tive issues are advanced that good investments are not affected by
the same movement notwithstanding the decline they have seen.
For instance, Atchison and West Shore 4s are both selling within
about one per ceut of the pricea they made as a result of the Baring
failure. Other securiiies equally as good can only find a market
at a sacrifice. The low price at which these securities
are selling ought to attract buyers, but thej are not
likely to do so while the Treasury Department and
the New York banks are by their acts and announcements
declaring tho situalion to be so bad. The part the Treasury is
taking seems somewhat inconsistent with the advice that recently
came from its head and his head to the general public to bave con¬
fidence and shows how thoroughly mixed and uncertain it is on the
question under review. The administration and its friends are also
Hkely to do the cause of sound currency more harm than good by
going too far in attributing all the financial trouble we are now
experiencing to the Sherman law. That measure has a great deal
to answer for, but there have been ether causes at work—over-pro¬
duction in manufactures and agriculture, over-speculation and dis¬
honesty—which have all contributed their share. To overlook these
coutributiug causes is to act Ihe part of special pleader and put
arguments into the hands of the opponents of currency reform.





AS every indication is eloquent of the fact that the Rapid Transit
problem in New York City will certainly be surrendered
sooner or later to the Manhattan Company it is well tbat the Mayor
did not promptly accept the resignation of Mr. Spencer and his
sympathizing fellow-commissioners. If the most that official quies¬
cence and public stupidity will permit us to have is a patched-up,
makeshift addition to our transportation facilities the sooner we
get it the better and have done witU the matter. New York has
been bought and sold and it is useless to lament our condition or
interpose objections. We must say " Kismet" and stoically
continue to crowd into packed cars. As there appears to
be only a few thousand dollars between the price which
Mr. Statin and Mr. Spencer put upon the comfort, decency and
progress of the metropolis there is no reason why they should
remain apart. Conclude the bargain, gentlemen 1 Twenty-flve
thousand a year isn't worth sticking over. Indeed, it is part of
the topsy-turvey consideration that has been given to this rapid
transit business from the first that such tremendous anxiety has
been shown over whether the city shall get one or two thousand
dollars, more or less, for its treasury out of rapid transit. The
character and extent of the new service was the really important
side of the matter, but strangely that has had very little
attention, and we see that when tho Manhattan Co.
object to extending their line bejond the limit qI immediate div^-.





dends the Commissioners are readier to forego their demands in
that direction than they are to modify their stipulations as lo cash
payments. Here they are firm. The city must have the few
thousand dollars; but as to the service the public are to get, there
is DO need to be too particular about that. If the company thinks
it cannot give ua cars enough the public must go without them, if it
wont pay to build to the city line the city must wait, and so on.
These are unimportant matters compared with whether the com¬
pany shall pay on iis gross revenue or its revenue after deducting
the present taxes! Strange perversity! when the cry of NewYork
is for belter accommodalion and service and not for a petty
addition to the treasm-y. Better far forego pajment of any kind
if the city could get the service it requires.





WE cannot sympathize with the efforts which the Sabbatarians
are making to close the World's Fair on Sunday, for we
must regard the matter chiefly from the practical rather
than the theological point of 'view, and it seems to us very
much more desirable that several thousand people should spend
Sunday rationally and respectably within the Exposition inclosure
than in loafing and loitering in hotel halls and corridors or ou tho
streeta, or, aa would be the case with a great number, •'drinking
perpendicularly " in Chicago bars. We don't mean to say that this
is the only alternative. Tha churches and the Sunday schools are
open on Sunday as well as the saloons, but no one can have
any hesitaiion in saying that, of the crowd excluded
from the Fair on Sunday, if the doors be closed,
only an inconsiderable minority would seek the cDurclits. Sunday
is the great American loafing daj' and the bulk of the people iu
Chicago would put their time to no better use than they would if
they were allowed to enter the Exhibition. But while we do not
sympathize with the Sabbatarians, we canuot quile agree with their
opponents who endeavor to make out that the fi^ht about the open¬
ing of the World's Fair is " piire ciisseduess." Giren certain
ideas concerning the sanctity of tlie Sabbath, ihe opposition to
the opening of the Exposition on Sunday is logical and in a sense
very practical. The force of a great national example, oue way or
the other, cannot be overestimated, and the success of the anti-
Sabbatarian principle in Chicago, while it would not incur judg¬
ment make in the least for unrighteousness, wjuid certainly be a
aort of popular decision against the ecclesiastical idea of Sunday.
That it has been possible lo raise this quesiion as forcibly ae it has
been raised and in such an extreme case as the World's Fair, clearly
indicates how strong the ecclesiastical  idea remains,  even at this

late day.

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DURING the conference with several representatives of Labor
whicb Professor Levassf'ur, the distinguished French statisti¬
cian, held ihe otber day in Columbia College, George Murray, an
ex-Master Workman of the Knighls of Labor, dociarcd that the
high wages earned by the American laborer are due to the labor
organizations. It is, of course, natural that Mr, Murray should be
of this opinion. Everybody is apt to magnify the importanceof his
own tiade. The strange thing is that people who are not profession¬
ally connected wilh " Labor " sliould share Mr. Murray's opinion,
as over aud over agam we see tliey do. The rate of wages in
any country depends primarily upou the productiveness of labor.
Wages in Patagonia could uot be high as in Peimpylvania even
though the Walking Delegate were supreme in the former and the
"union" unknown inthe latter. The fundamental cause of high
wages in this country is that labor iu the United Slates—largely
due to natural advantages—is more pioductive thau elsewhere.
Wages are the portion which Labor receives in the di.stribution
oE the national income. The Unions add nothing to tbe amount
for distribution. The most that they can do is to exact as large a
share as possible for "Labor."

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PRINCESS EULALIA will, no doubt, carry home many amus¬
ing recollections of her visit to this country; but wo doubt if
she will get quite so much fun out of anything as out of the efforts
of our great journalists to "illustrate" her. It ia customary for
travelers, who push their journey into remote parts, to return laden
with curiosities connected witb the most peculiar practices of tte
barbaric peoples they have visited, and certainly the princess could
exhibit no more striking example of the savagery of this counlry
than iis newspapers with their childish attempts to represent her
pictorinlly. Nothing more archaic, simple, untutored could have
been done by the eavages that greeted Columbus upon hi.5 arrival
on these shores some five hundred years ago. Our great journal¬
ists are. of course, not likely to take this view, but
no doubt the old Peruvian and Mexican artists who atttmpied
to portray tbe first visitors from the Princess's country were not
without a fondness and sympathy for their own rude attempts which
passed with them for the tempered appreciation of the critical
judgment. How elusive the royal physiognomy was to the artists
of the metropolitan press our readers cannot have forgotten.
Twenty-four hours was sufficient to completely change its charac-