Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1891-06-04
FEAR A MONEY PANIC.
GRAVE FINANCIAL SITUATION
IN LONDON.

Opinion Prevalent that a Crash Is In
ov table m Case the Portuguese Loan
Fails oIiapse OF ths Earrings and the
bankruptcy OF Argent NO Have Scared
the Money! Lend rs
All this week the air has been full OF
gold, SAYS recent dispatch from Lon
don. City men are all talking gold, ed.
itors are all working gold, English finan.
ciers overloaded with bad securities are
pledging good ones in Paris for gold,
Russia is swallowing all the gold she can
get, taking S750,0O0 from this market,
Tuesday. as bonne bouche for $I2, 500.
600 more, which she will swallow next
week. American steamers are bringing
millions IL gold weekly, and altogether
ON the great stage of European history
international money has completely
usurped the place OF international mur,
der, and grim-visaged war has smoothed
his wrinkled front in view OF the painful
and unsupDortable void in his trousers
pocket which must be filed forthwith.
The situation is peculiar perhaps the
most peculiar that European finance has
ever seen. Its primary cause was the
Argentine bankruptcy and the failure
of Barring Bros. If the storm had blown
itself out the weather would have
Cleared again and SUSPENSE passed arTa.u-
The intervention or the Bank OF En-
gland. while it averted the crash, insti-
tuted at the same time period of un-
certainty and depression, the gloom OF
which has steadily deepened. Argentine
finances are completely HOPELESS. Cap.
ital has fled the country. The new ma
tional bank bill sent by its Government
to its Congress this week is sim.
ply futile attempt to cure
,b,.opio i,,volid Tho pannIa houa varu
clearly proved their inability to govern
themselves, and the country now owes
5000, coo. coo, or overs $3.50 per capita of
population that would not themselves
bring that average under the hammer
judging from their late idiosyncrasies OF
action OF this amount S4O0, 600, 900 has
come out of the European market
mainly from London, and is destined &c
be for the present a dead loss. The great
financial checker-game Of the last few
months, has simply been Christian en-
deavor on the part OF some energetic and
ingenious people TO see that the loss falls
not on them, but on somebody else.
The months OF depression thus i'm
augurated have reached their climax in
the partial failure OF the Portuguese loan.
All this week the Paris bourse has been
feverish and full Of disquieting rumors.
Pessimistic prophets foretell an ineyita.
BILE crash when the Portuguese account
comes TO be settled at the beginning OF
June. French bankers have managed to
scrape through and place third Of the
| loan, but there is a wonderful lack OF
confidence in Rortugals- condition, as
her people have been taxed beyond en-.
durance, and her borrowing capacity Is
exhausted. Trouble is expected among
the German banks, which have failed &c
| place Portuguese stock which they con
| tracted to take and for which they must
| paw RumorS even asserted that Barons
| Alphonse and Gustav de Rothschild OF
| the Paris house had quarreled ovei
| questions of policy and would dissolve,
which report now takes the form OF Q
statement that Baron Gustav has ceased
| actively to concern himself with the firm
through i'll health.
Spain is in trouble and las proclaimed
its pressing need of $50. OO0,0 to pay
for new railways and a new feet. Italy
is even worse off with deficit OF mill
ions, which can only be supplied by bOr
rowing, as the last drop has beer
squeezed out OF the popular orange BY
.overtaxation: while the worst sign o
all is that each tax brings in less thar
before Customs receipts in April alont
Finance had calculated, and the poverty
and misery of the people, thousands o
whom are In Rome without work ol
bread, are portentous. All the LatiI
countries in faet-European and Soutl
Americans-seem to be more or less IA
trouble, and quite equal of tlBemselve
to bring about great and phenomena
crisis in the money market.
Strange TO say. however. they ar
likely to be assisted ia this work by th'
queer finaneiering of NJ Vishnegradski
Russian Minister of Finance. NJ Wish
negradski ever since he assumed ofiie'
has had one ambition, viz. to swell tia
value of the Russian ruble. This b.
the aid of French fnaneiers and through
buying up Russian paper, he has sue
eeeded in in doing in spite of the bite
objections Of all the exporters and man
ufacturers OF the country.
Vishnegradski, having now by fnan
cial chicanery raised the status OF tn
ruble and OF Russian securities to a de
gree entirely unwarranted by any In
crease of commercial prosperity or an.
certainty OF peace, is struggling tootl
and nail to maintain his position, and !
he is forced TO withdraw all the sos. 900,
600 which Russia had until recently Il
London and which he has begun to draw
upon. it will probably bring about wit
crash the overhanging panic.
! At any rate all financial talk
gloomy, and the money crisis has entire
ly put in abeyance any possibilities o
war for some time to come.