Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-12-31


soon be seeking safe investments at low
rates. While the business activities of
the country have been checked they have
not been destroyed, and with all the es-
sential elements Of prosperity still in
existence, there is every prospect
for good year in 1891.
Although the amount of grain grown is
smaller than usual, 1t will net producers
fully as much as larger crop. Rail-
roads will not have quite as much grain
to carry, but they are having q much
larger volume of miscellaneous business,
and with larger values of the article car
ried they Will be able to get better rates.
The South and Southwest have never
been as favorably situated as now. Their
crops have been large and brought good
prices, and there is an industrial devel-
opment which is quite remarkable. La
Dor Is generally well employed, and as
soon as Wall street gets over its scare
there is no reason why we should not
have a veritable boom.
FREE COINAGE.
Even IL the silver men should succeed
In passing a free coinage bill, it would
not be such u terrible thing as some peo-
pie seem to think. The amount which
the present bill provides shall be coined
will absorb by far the greater part of the
entire amount Of silver produced in the
United States, and there is no reason for
experimenting serious results. In any
event the country is developing and
growing richer every day; the natural
increase Of our population is about
1000, 900 per year, or 20, 900. 600 in q
decade, and the country can not help
but progress in the right direction.
Mr.. Benjamin G. Clarke, president OF
the Thomas iron company, told of the
situation in his branch of the CONNER
cial world. He said that the year now
slipping out had been most satisfactory
TO most iron people. 1.-THE output has
been as large as ever, - continued Mr..
Clarke, "and it has been disposed of at
fairly paying prices. We have never
been closer sold up on foundry irons than
just at this moment. AS for steel rails,
the orders for them have diminished
since the trouble in the financial COM
munity. This 1 take to be a most ex-
cellent sign. 1t shows a most conserva-
tive policy on the part of railroad man.
ayers, and disposition on their part not
to order goods for which they are not
prepared to pay. This will stop need
less expansion in railroad building, and
the loss of orders for steel rails must
just now be considered most beneficial.
| have no fears whatever about the year
at hand. The indications are Of the
brightest, because they are based on
business policy which has no initiation in
it and no undue expansion. 1t is simply
PAY for what you can get and order
what you can pay for.
BANKER CIEwS
Banker Henry Clews thus describes the
situation: 1.-THE business outlook pre-
sents now a much brighter prospect.
The panic for this decade has evidently
come and gone, but it will take some
time to restore that degree of confidence
which will cause this fact to be uuiver-
sally felt and appreciated. In order to
make this statement clear it is necessary
TO take short retrospect of the condition
of the business world prior to the panic.
The trouble came to Wall street in a sea-
son of general prosperity, when business
all over the country was in such a -four
ishing condition that it had absorbed ut
least 500, 200, 900 more capital than at
any previous period of our history. This
was one reason why money in Wall street
had been occasionally stringent for the
past few months, and partly why con-
slant liquidation was going on in the
price of stocks, especially in those that
exhibited any weak spots. There is no
truer tombstone than tight money for
discovering weak spots ia Wall street Sc
curities. But the great iusidious cause
of the enormous liquidation which
eliminated in the collapse of
several financial institutions and the
prelude to the panic, must be looked for
in the condition and management of the
railroads of the country for the past
years-in fact for the last decade, but
especially for the last four or five years.
The large increase of railroad facilities
during this period has so far exceeded
the actual freight requirements as to
competition beyond all ordi-
nary bounds of control. We have thus
had a two-fold bad result-first a food
of new securities, not only in many
cases Of questionable quantity, but also
far in excess of the current bsorbent
power of the market; and next the i'm
of obtaining paying rates on
traffic, which has acted disastrously upon
even the best stocks, but has fallen
with especially destructive force upon
the new issues in question, and has seri-
ously affected their market value.
FAVORABLE ASPECT.
Zone favorable aspect of this liouids-
ton II is necessary TO observe in order to
form correct estimate of the pauic and
its consequences. 1t set in at q period
Of comparative quiet in speculation, and
began, not with an inflated, but a mod
crate range of prices IN stocks. There
fore when the crisis came the greater
portion of these securities had not very
far to fall in order to touch their intriu
sic level; but many of them were de-
pressed considerably below this point
when the London crash burst so suddenly
aud unexpectedly on spectators and in
vestors on both des of the Atlantic. AS
the great bulk of the money was in cir
nulatIon and probably invested else
where, it was impossible to obtain it on
short notice to relieve the two great |
financial csnters. London aud New |
York, in the moment of their greatest |
1t is apparent now. 1 think, |
that in taking q prospective estimate of !
The outlook it Is necessary to note care |
fully the conditions of general |
business which preceded the panic. |
Il is also important to keep in |
mind that this panic differed from |
almost all its predecessors in the charac-
erstio that it was rich mans panic. !
L resembled more closely the panic of |