The Waco evening news. [volume] (Waco, Tex.) 1891-1894, 1892-03-08
About the Silver Craze and Its
Effect.
ONE HUNDRED MILLIONS OF
American Securities Returned 20
This Country-Our Gold Flowing
out to the Foreign Holders, and
the End Is not Yet-rhe Stock
Market Flooded with Mysteries.
New York, March 5, 1899.


MYSTERIES" and rumors of gigantic
railroad deals upon an unprecedent.
ed scale as being either in progress or
already accomplished. Details of
these have filled the daily press for
weeks pas but only su,h operators
as are within the charmed circles ap-
pear to know the true inwardness OF
many of them. AS consequence,
judgment passes for little in estimat'
ing the future value of many securi
ties, for the market is almost wholly
under the control of comparatively
few persons, whose operations must
Inevitably influence the value of thou
sands of millions of stocks and bonds.
There is one other factor which is
again becoming Influential in Wall
Street, and that is the silver question
Already it is producing important eff
fects which had not been expected to
at this early stage in the outworkngs
of the Silver Act of 1890. TIE re-
neval. of the exports of gold has
proved an eye'opener. During the
year 1891 our exports OF goods and
specie exceeded our imports of the
like items by $lS5,000, 900,
aud for the first two months of
1892 fully the same rate
of excess has been maintained
1t might have been expected that
under such circumstances we should
now be importing large amounts of
gold to settle this large apparent trade
balance in our favor. The fact is,
however, that we are called upon to
export gold. How are we to account
for this extraor binary movement?
After setting off, against this creditor
balance of some 2l5 millions for the
last fourteen months, all that may
have accrued against us in Europe on
account OF interest, freight on imports,
undervaluations, etc., there ought to
be balance in our favor of some
thing like lis millions; for an average
of the last decade, about IS millions
surplus of exports over imports has
sufficed to lquidste these debtor
items. There arises from these facts
the strongest possible presumption
that, since the beginning of 1891, con-
siderably over 100 millions of our Sc
curities have been returned from Eu
rope; for the credit balance has un-
questionably been settled, and there
is no other way in which it could have
been done except by the re-
turn Of stocks, bonds, etc. This
rehux of our securities dates from the
period of the enactment Of the last
silver law, which doubled the govern
ment purchases of silver. 1t is coin
cident with an opinion everywhere
entertained in European financial cir.
Giles, and emphasized by the foreign
press, that the course of legislation
and the bias of popular opinion in this
country indicated grave possibility
that our currency system light be.
come subject to general depreoia-
ton of value, which would CORE
spondingly diminish the value of all
our securities not made specifically
payable in gold. AS Europe holds
many hundreds of millions of Ameri.
can securities of the very kind that
would be subject to such deteriora-
ton, it is nothing more than might be
expected that our obligations should
be returned in extraordinary amounts,
aud the more so as the New York
market has been in a condition to
take them without suffering serious
reaction.
Over 100 million of securities re-.
turned within fourteen months This
IS the startling fact just dawning upon
the perception of Wall Street; and it
naturally suggests some very grave in.
quiries; such, for Instance, as how
much gold should we have had to
ship in payment for these returned
securities, had we not been favored
with an extraordinary surplus of
cereals which Europe happened to
need -? how are we to pay for any
further amounts that may be so re.
turned ? what dimensions may this
future refux of investments assume,
should the mania for free coinage con.
tinue TO control the course of legisla
ton I? and, with only some $50 100000
of gold 10 the treasury, outside the re-
quired reserve against greenbacks,
where is the gold to come from to
satisfy these two possible foreign