Morning journal and courier., 1889-08-03
FRAUQMT WITH DANGER.

A Consul Generals Ideas eR the Social Condition iA Gefnany-Surplus Capi. tai Eagerly Seeking Investment-La. Dor Troubles In the Future. WASHINGTON, Aug. 2.-Jaoob Mueller, United States consul general to Frankfort on-the-Main, under date of May-27, makes e
 report to the State department upon the in- corporation fever now raging among some
 classes of German people seeking high divi-
 dend paying investments. He says social con-
 ditions in Germany are bad and fraught with
 danger. They arise from the struggle for mere
 existence by hundreds of thousands of men,
 loyal, conservative and unpretentious.
 "Think of it, he says, "that even in times
 when mining companies realize much better
 prices for their coals than for many years
 past, these struggling miners receive wages
 ranging from s125 to $1s5 per year and that
 they have to strike for small
 increase thereon, while at the game
 time millions of surplus capital is eagerly seeking investment in undertakings which if successful tend to render worse the condition Of the working classes, and if not successful Will be rutnous to many unsuspectins sub. scrlbers of stock and greatly injurious to the public interest"
 The consul general says the business men malady that led to the crash of 1878 and pri- vate undertakings are being changed into stock companies or trusts.
 Ihe large dividends of certain stock companies during series of years led capi- tallsts towards these stock companies and towards an increase of sheir number as a tair field for new and profitable investments, The law of 1884, intended to regulate stock companies SO as to take away their danger ous features and secure stockholders. has had the very opposite effect. Con sul General Mueller says, and rather en- the transformation of private in. dustries into stock concerns. The power and Influence of these stock companies upon busi- ness IS so great that even long established 1rms, employing millions of capital and thousands of workmen like Krupp, Siemens and others cannot hope to certainly escape the necessity of becoming ineor- porated. As to the result of this new sys- lem, Consul General Mueller says: From aumanistic standpoint 1t must be decided 'hat the new system is an improvement upon 'he old. Corporations have no souls, and lnder the new system the personal and mor- Il influence of the members of private con- 'erns will disappear entirely.
 In this change of relations between employ DTS and employes is the germ of new trouble ! n the social and political conditions. Stock | companies compelled to report the status of | heir atfaiIs can be easily obtained by the | This knowledge will enable the \ workers to know just when to demand in- 'reased wages. The next move will be union \ # the workmen in one large organization like | 'ur "Labor League" ruled and governed at a | central place, and then as 8 new phsse of the ! truggle for existence the war between em- ,loyers and employees will be permanent. What the consequences thereof will be no man ! 'an foresee, but I do apprehend that ulti- nately they will and must be disastrous un. ess present methods of production shall be changed or modified"