New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-07-12
Maya.
Total floating debt.

Floating Railroad Co rI00UUl
SSs SS 55 g
Total floating si2, l67 O62 sl7OsO9ol 80
The balance-sheet Of November is as given
in the report of the London bondholders
committee, Just received, which contains
much information never before published in
this country. The comparison shows an in
crease of over 100000 in the floating
debt, besides all interest "pad" III scrip
during the meanwhile. But the receivers also
find that there were debts, May "a, mentioned
as follows " Sinking fund loan, $166,O7O 40;
"credit balance of insurance funds,
"S3S5, 500 % sundry credits, $4O5,566 10
"0hcse entries are made for the purposes OF
bookkeeping; they are not cash liability.
"Sinking fund loan Schuylkil Navigation
Company Improvement bonds, due November
al, 1880, $22S,O00; total, $1,1S5,146 49,"
As these items are included by the receivers
in the total debts of the companies, 1T does
not appear why they should not bs added to
the floating debt, which in that case
amounted, May "a, to $1S,266,127 so.
The mortgage and debenture debt of both
companies, not including the amount due from
$93.367,126 OF, so that the aggregate owed
by the companies, not TO each other, was
$111, $3.50, 253 81. Adding the stock of the
Railroad Company, $34,27S, 175 %, the aggre-
gate capital which the company represents
has sunk amounts to $145, ,429 -. In
1871. when the Coal Company was
formed, the entire liabilities of the
Railroad Company, stock included, were
less than 500, 000,O Thus, $96,000,0 600
has been invested, sunk or fraudulenty paid
out Coal lands arc put in at an average
value of 1926 per acre. but it is now stated
by correspondent of The SchuylkiH RepubH-
can that a large amount of these lands will
not be productive within the present cen
tury, another portion will be exhausted
within two years or Is already exhausted,
aud another portion is entirely outside OF
the coal formation. and would not sell
for So per acre. In the report of
the investigating committee, among the
methods exposed in which reports had been
doctored," so that the 80, 693, 900 paid in
dividends but not earned, might seem to
have been earned, appears n credit of prof
"itsn on sales of coal lands by the Railroad
Company to the Coal and Iron Company. How
sunk or stolen is still represented by live as
sets, how much has been fraudulenty paid to
stockholders, or iilched in the purchases and
sales of property, and how much has been
really lost in the business the receivers ought
to find out if they can, but they probably
never can.
One thing evident is that there have been
most outrageous frauds in reports of the con-
diton of this great property. Matters have
been misrepresented, year after year, and the
company has thus been enabled to borrow
money which it could not have borrowed if
the truth had not been concealed. For ex-
ample it has been stated that the business of
the last six months has been exceptionally
profitable, so that its floating debt could
not In any event be more than four
teen millions" But it seems that there
has either been dead loss of about
q million a month, or else the latest ofiicia
report was false and fraudulent. One other
thing appears. The President, who stands
charged with the responsibility for the
gravest Misrepresentation, as well as for
most ruinous and reckless management, is
Just the man of all others who ought not to
be tolerated by any court in the delicate
position of receiver.
There is persistent tilk in Philadelphia of
reorganization, in which mutual cOnces-
sions must be made, it is said, by the cred-
tors who have been Systematically swindled,
and by the stockholders who are said to have
pocketed $15 10000 of money in dividends
never earned. This money belongs, every dol
lar of it, to the creditors, from whom it was
obtained by false representations, and the
stockholders who received dividends not
earned ought to be forced to disgofge every
dollar so received before O single credi-
tor consents to release any part of
his claim. Next, there Is personal
responsibility of the officials by whom
dividends have been fraudnently declared,
and of the stockholders for all unsatisfed
debts Every man who has been in any way
responsible for the gigantic wrongs which
have been perpetrated in the conduct of the
company ought to be prosecuted to the utmost
| of his responsibility. 1t is most shameful
| thing to speak of the participants in this bust
ness as if plunderers and victims were on
equal terms, having equal rights to be protected
and interests to be preserved by mutual
concessions" The first thing to be done is to
find out how much has been stolen and how
much unlawfully paid, and to get back every
dollar of it that can be recovered. Then il
will be time enough for creditors to consider
what reasons they have for making conces-
siOns to body of managers whose principal
| function in the past has been to uphold a most