Birmingham age-herald., 1895-02-28

lar of the governments gold reserve. It is
 needless to rehearse those matters again. The condition of the government credit as
 expressed in the market value of its securi-
 ties Is the point of interest now. The ne- gotiations with the syndicate were con- cluded February 8. On February z. the day before the signing of the contract,
 there were no sales of the old coupon gov- ernment As; the bid price was down to 110- points off from the sales the week con- gress came together, and if an investor had at that time pressed round lot Of govern ment 4s for sale we hazard nothing in eay- ing he would have had to accept consid- erably lower figure than the quotation named. Now that is what congress did;
 but not by any means all the evil It's action would have wrought had the bond contract been delayed another week. What has the president donef When he saw that hope or help from con- gress was gone he sought out those whose credit was second to none in the world-virtually got their indorsement
 -and made the best terms he could With them for replenishing the government gold reserve. Thereby he rescued us from great disaster, and besides that bis action and the names of those whose co operation his action had secured removed the taint from the government credit and has brought back the price of it's old per cent bonds to 113, and no doubt the price will soon be where 1t was when the session of congress began.
 But some say that the syndicate has made large lot of money out of the trans- action, as if that were blameworthy. It's work is not done yet. Besides no one has seen the balance sheet. We know as little as others about the amount, though we presume 1t will show a profit when the syndicate's undertaking is completed, for the members of it are shrewd men and are in business like the rest of us for that pur- pose. Of one fact we are certain-they have done marvellous work in saving our standard of values and in restoring the credit of the government by coming to it's we cannot see why, under such cir cumstances they are not entitled to their gains. Those who purchased government bonds in the time of war made very large proft-we always thought they deserved it. They bought the bonds at a time when the people who afterwards criticised them were as a rule at least half in sympathy with those who were endeavoring to dis rupt the government. The position of the present syndicate and their critics is not so mainly in the fact that then we were fight ing for the government and now we are fighting for our standard of values. Some insist that the president might have made better terms. That we deny. It is very questionable, as we said last week whether any other combination of capital was within the reach of the government which could have effected what the syndicate has. We repeat that a bond offering ia this country for gold would have precipitated crisis instead of relieving one. Besides, the syndicate had to be perfected and be- come operative at once.
 At the close of Thursday the syndicate had paid into the sub-treasury and other designated Repositories 1, 893, 102.02 ounces of gold. valued at S34 GAO, ,500 s5. calling for s32, ,576 ,319. 92 of bonds; also the syndicate has paid into the treasury $1 123 GOO gold, for which legal tenders were exchanged, this being in excess of payments on the American half of the bond account. The net gold in the treasury reported Thursday, the 21st of February, was S6S, 70S, 823. .26, against s4s, ,s43 ,66s on Saturday, February 16, aud S41 ,340 ,1s1, the low point on Feb ruary 12. The bank statement of last week failed to reflect the large payments into the treasury on bond account, because the re- ceipts for the gold so paid were counted as cash, and, therefore, the changes in the statement were only normal, showing a loss of S1, 2O4 ,600 loans and g6S2, 500 cash, while the deposits were reduced S2, ,520, ,000, making decrease of only $202, 80O in the surplus reserve. This was regarded as an indication that the money market would not be disturbed, at least for the present, by the bond settlements. -