Jane 8,1895





Record  and  Guide.







riiDTiciim-<W lisoru Pll^lRRa.





ESTABUSHED-^ (W.CH SUi^ 1868.

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BiISK/eSS At/oTHF.tJIFS OrGtfjERjlL llfttR^l,
PRICE,   PER   YEAR   IN   ADVANCE,   SIX   DOLLARS.

FubUs/ied every Saturday.

TBLBPHONH,......OOBTLANBT 1870

OommunloatlouB should be addressed to

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"Entered at the Post-offiee al New York, If. T., as second-class matter."





Vol. LV.





JUNE 8, 1895.





No. 1,421





For Brooklyn matter, see Brooklyn Department immediateli- following
New Jersey records {paqe 976).

AT first sight the weakness in the stock market appears to be
due to speculative causes alone." Regardiug the condition
of general busiuess the signs all point to continued iiuprove-
luent, railroad earnings are iucreasing and the reports of uew
enterprises under way and the increasing of wages at old ones
lire not infrequent. But under all this there is a gi-owing uneasi¬
ness, at least among timid aud very conservative secunty
holders for the immediate futui'e in financial circles. The rise
and strength in exchange rates indicates that foreigners have
begun selling again in this market, and the reports of the doings
of silver conventions in the West are uot likely to change their
position. The out-and-out declaration of two of these gatherings
in favor of the unlimited coinage of silver by the United States
atthe ratio of IGtol may well make the careful investor or
operator on the other side of the Atlantic hold bis hand uutil he
sees what power there is behind that declaration. W 3 pointed
out sometime ago that the weak point in the recent rise was tbe
share that Europe took in it as it was likely to withdraw its
support at any moment if scared. It will never take part in any
bull movement here escept suspiciously, until the currency
question is satisfactorily disposed of, and this fact will be a
drag on operations so long as it exists, which apparently
will be until after the nest presidential election. Iu
the interval prices will move up or doyyn in proportion as
the silver advocates appear to he weak or strong. Be¬
sides this uncertain attitude of foreigners toward oui'
securities, the last week has seen at home some developments
which have had a depressing effect. The 'reduction of the
Northwest dividend, necessary and proper as it was, is one, the
Cordage receivership is another, and tbe unanswerable evidence
of market quotations that Susquehanna & Western is in diffi¬
culties is a (bird. Recovery from the effect of these events is
necessary hefore we can see a return to risiug prices. The
weakness of the market is also likely to delay some operations
fi'om wbich much good was expected. While it is necessary to
take all these things into account, it is also proper to remember
the improvement in business makes impossible anything Uke
an actual collapse.





rjHHE statements of earnings on the principal English railways
-*■■ are preparing stockholders for a falling off in July
divideud.s, but such is the plethora of money and the scarcity of
securities that aft'ord a reasonable guarantee of any dividend at
all, that prices of such stocks are uearly all higher than they
wore a year ago. Bimetallists will note with regret that Mr.
Balfour, under urgiiigs of his political friends, has promised to
confine his advocacy of bimetallacy to academic gatherings.
This amounts to its abandonment altogether, because it is
hardly possible that a practical politician would take up ,'juch a
question without believiug tliat it couhl be effectively
used at election time. The Tories have been taught
by the favor with which fche position of their
opponents on currency matters is regarded that a
silver cry fiuds no appreciable echo in the mind of the Euglish
voter, and that to go to the country with a plank iu their plat¬
form intended to disturb currency conditions would insure cer¬
tain and dire defeat. The German Federated nations have all
but oue approved the calling of an interuational conference to
cousider tbe silver question, but that rather puts the Imperial
Chancellor iu a hole thau otherwise, seeing that he has been
pointedly given to uuderstaud by foreign nations how hopeless
of any good results such a conference would be. The German
Government proposes by tariff differentials to encourage the
importation of raw petroleum which is to be i-efined within the
Empire,   and   the   Reichstag   has voted the   maintenance   of





the existing export bounties on sugar from July 1
to July 31, 1897. Eighty sugar companies have paid
no dividends for some years. The politicians and
preas in France have begun what looks like a movement to
prevent trading in foreign mining shares on the bourses of that
country ; tbe movement is, of course, aimed at the South African
mines, hut is likely to go much farther. The Minister of Finance
has also a budget proposition to raise revenue by taxing foreign
stocks and bonds. The Austiian bourse took no notice of Count
Kalnoky's resignation. Cold weather is retarding Austrian
crops and will have a bad effect on the results of the harvest.
The Chilian Government announces itself on a gold basis, that is
to say it has a small gold reserve aud wiU cancel a large part of
its paper by the issue of silver.





The Ke-reorganization of Cordage.

IT is not often even in the wild and reckless way of organizing
financial and commercial enterprises peculiar to this day
that a company is incorporated, bankrupted, reorganized, again
bankrupted and ready for a second reorgauization in the short
space of four years. This feat has, however, been achieved by
the enterprise referred to generally as Cordage. The latest an¬
nouncement was not unexpected, but it is a very remarkable
thing for which no amount of preparation affords a suitable ex¬
planation, that fche aecond insolvency of this extraordinary en¬
terprise does not arouse a shout of indignation which should bring
the responsibility for the loss of vast sums of money home to
some one. The moral sensibilities of WaU street are of the
bluntest, or it eould not take as calmly as it does the cool in¬
timations that receivers have heen appointed for the corporation
and that out of the personnel of its management a " protective
committee has been created.

This is a case in which the temptation to use hard words s
very gi'eat, almost irresistible. Still, in spite of the aggrava¬
tion of the case, it is better to keep to plain statements of facts,
as they offer the best commentary upon it. Take, for instance,
the amount of money that has gone into this, what shall it be
called, say concern—any term indicatiug husiness or commer¬
cial principlea is inapplicable—and the means by which it has
been obtained from the public. We will put aside, as being
mere water and representing nothing, the common stock, flrst
$10,000,000 and afterwards doubled, and confine ourselves to
issues for which a tangible return was received. There was first
an issue of $5,000,000 preferred stock placed on the market
by well-known bankers; then $6,000,000 Security Company's
bonds wei'e sold, and iu the reorgauization of December, 1893,
between $2,500,000 and $3,000,000 in actual cash was raised.
That amounts to, say, $13,500,000 cash contributed in three
years, making no deductious for commissions and discounts
paid to bankers, and not one dollar remains to-day in any form
available to extinguish the liabilities of the company, all of
which were supposed to bave been extinguished eighteen
months ago by the issue of $7,500,000 first mortgage bonds
which should be added to the cash subscriptions, and a new
appeal is made for $3,000,000 more. Now what can be said of
an undertaking that will consume money in that way and what
guarantee is there that at the end of another year or so this
$3,000,000 will not have gone too, leaving need of a repetition
of the assessment process.

Tbe methods by which the Cordage Company, whether the
old National or the new United States, were managed have been
reprehensible in the highest degree, particularly in the way in
which the worst facts of any given situation have from time to
time been kept from the security-holders. Those whose painful
experience it has been to have bad any connection with it what¬
ever as security-holders, will not have forgotten that it was not
until the last assessments had all been paid in that it was made
known that it was necessary to cancel bonds to provide for the
floating debt. The holders of the Security Company's bonds
were tben by specious statements induced to surrender their
lien rights on the only property of any value the concern had iu
order to give a basis for a new loan, just as the preseut bond¬
holders are asked to surrender their lien rights iu order that the
new loan may he floated. It will not be forgotten, too, how
impossible it has been in the paat year to obtain information ou
the operations of the company ; that this iu any suitable form
was refused to the stockholders even at the annual meeting.
Latterly denials have beeu made thatthe compauy was in diffi¬
culties in relation to its iuterest requirements, eveu while the
petition for the appointment of the receivers must have been in
preparation.'

The plan of reorganization as published is very cleverly de¬
signed to compel stockholders to come in, inasmuch aa they
must pay their assessments or lose all their interest in the com-
Ijauy, They are told that the plan has beeu underwi'itten,
The underwriting of the plans means simply this, that
anarrangement has been made to sell the $3,000,000 of new
bonds on terms with which the parties most interested, the
present security-holders, are left unacquainted, providing tbat