The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-04-14
1HE WEEK In WALL STREET

New YORK, April 13-Henry Clews, in
his weekly review of the stock market
says:
During the past week Wall street has
sprung into new life and activity. The
beginning of April has been expected to
bring an improvement in the stock market:
but the degree of recovery has exceeded
anticipations The volume of transactions
has more than doubled. and prices have
advanced almost through the entire list;
but the best symptom connected with the
revival is that it has come not so much
from mere room" influences as from an
important accession of outside buying
orders. The stimulus is not of the arti-
ticial kind that is sometimes manufactured
by professional traders or capitalists asso-
ciated with large corporations; it is mainly
due to simultaneous and natural demand
coming from the public at large, and alike
Tor transient and permanent investment.
This welcome change is due to several
causes. 1t is the first clear and decided
evidence that public confidence has recov-
cred from the shock impaired by the
crisis of last fail. And iii that sense it
means, what many have suspected, that
the damage inflicted by the panic was due
more to fright than to positive injury or
widespread disaster The mischief was
more in the nature Of a arrangement of
the machinery of finance than in any gen
eral unsOundness of business at large or
any such extensive insolvency as the Bar
lng's suspension revealed among the Euro
pean credit establishments associated with
South American interests. The whole
trouble lay in comparatively temporary
over-creatlon of railroad issues and Yio-
lent hitch in our currency arrangements.
while the general trade of the country was
IN sound and wholesome condition. Croe-
full observers have all along felt that when
the public at large came to understand
these actual limitations of the bearings of
the crisis there would be a prompt and
effective recovery of confidence and gen
erai return to normal conditions. All
symptoms unite to indicate that we have
now reached that turning point
This, take to be the main explanation
of the marked improvement of tone in the
business of the stock exchange. Other
causes, however, have co-operated in the
same direction. The adjournment of con-
gress has removed the incubus of appre-
henslon arising from the agitation of inn
portant questions that have kept the
public mind in state of prolonged ten
sion. The shelving of free coinage of
silver, the rejection of the southern cleo
tions bill. the settlement for a time at least
of the tariff agitation. the cessation of ex-
orbitant appropriations-the disposal of
these uDsettling ISSUES is great relief to
the business of the country and an import
ant contribution to confidence. At the
same time, the danger OF monetary strin-
gency has been greatly mitigated; for.
on the one hand, the largely in
creased disbursements of the govern
ment will necessitate distribution OF the
immense cash balance hitherto held by the
treasury. and, on the other. the operation
of the silver law viii add S6o, 900, 600 per
year TO the active circulation, in addition
TO the increase arising from our regular
production of gold. 1t is also factor of
no small Importance that. in the western
states generally the Granger hostility TO
the railroads shows marked sbStement
of its reckless hostility, and in almost
every case bills of that character have
been defeated. A still more direct stimu-
liant comes from the hopeful agricultural
prospects The winter wheat crop is IN
usually promising, whilst the weather is
favorable TO the getting in of the spring
crops: and the fact that the outlook for
the European wheat crop is discouragiug
suggests the probability Of good year for
the American farmer.
while the concurrence of the foregoing
favorable conditions Is calculated TO de-
velop a much more confident feeling as to
the future of business, it is beyond cues
ton that the current market value Of
securities Is much below the average. II
is true than the present gross earnings Of
the railroads show but. moderate gains on
those of last year; yet it IS TO be remera-
hsred that the traffic OF 1890 was unusually