The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-11-22
LNDnSrRLaL CONDITIONS.
What the Yale ReVIew >ays on Interesting
 Financial Questions.

oeedingly interesting number, more than usually excellent. Among it's ar tlcles two will attract special atten- tion, touching as they do on vital tlnan- ctial tops of interest here and abroad. The Review says among other things on African Speculation and American Financial Conditions:
 Much has been said about the Lon don speculation in South African gold mines; but, as far as we know, there has been very little attempt to connect the facts of this speculation with the course of New York securities and of New York exchange in London We do not feel justified in saying how far one of these things has influenced the other; but we feel confident that there has been some connection, and that New York financial conditions cannot be explained without taking it into &C., count.
 The industrial conditions of the Unit ed States for the past six months have seemed quite favorable to recovery from the depression through which We have passed. The general tone of business men has been hopeful Crops have been, on the whole, good, but not so good as to cause ruinously low prices. There has been so little railroad buiild- ing or duplication of manufacturing plant in the last three years, that the danger of cutthroat competition in these lines is not serious. Reorganiza- tions and strikes have brought produc- ers' contracts down to the level which the volume of currency and credit seems to warrant. For a time the New York stock market seemed ready to respond to these influences. But the advance was checked sooner than most operators expected, and much sooner than the history of the corresponding period in 1SS5-S would have warranted impar- tial observers in predicting. It is true that prices are now far above their lowest level in 1893, but most of this gain was made before the time of in- dustrial improvement. It was one of the nature of recovery from a financial panic, rather than of any anticipation of a commercial advance. Various ex- plantations have been given to account for the continued low prices of many promising securities The fear of gold exports is brought into evidence In a certain way, this is a sufficient explana- tion. In the present rather precarious condition of the United States treas ury, large exports of gold make the | maintenance of parity between different forms of our currency insecure, and | render us liable to all the dangers in- herent in a 1uctuating currency. But | this danger of gold exports is itself a thing to be accounted for. Under com mercial conditions like those which pre- vail in America at this season, we usually expect imports rather than ex- ports of gold
 Will not the amount of speculation in London, seconded as it is by capital in other parts of Europe, throw some light on the condition of affairs in Wall street? Although we do not know how | much capital has gone into Kaffirs, the | present valuation of such securities, on | an avowedly incomplete list made by the Economist, was In round numbers one thousand millions of dollars l Whlle only small part of this rep- resents capital which has actually gone into the gold mining industry, it never 'theless indicates a large diversion of speculative buying from other countries and other lines. If only d quarter of this amount has been applied to Ameri- can securities, we should have had all the increase in New York stock values Which could properly have been ex- pected. comparatively small num-
 Der of buyers by withdrawing from an accustomed market, make the difference between buoyant confidence on the one hand and depression on the other. It IS impossible to verify the amount of capital withdrawn from the United States for investment in South Africa.
 but It Is certainly plausible that boom in AfMcan securities should connect itself with stagnation in American securities.
 On the industrial outlook in the Unit ed States the Review says:
 The bond syndicate which relieved the United States treasury from it's et11-
 barrassments hoped that by so doing it would restore American confidence and credit in such a degree as to make an industrial revival possible. In thie, respect it's expectations proved well founded. It also calculated that, as a result of such revival there would be a | balance of trade in favor of the United States which would enable the syndi- cate to make profit on a transaction
 which involved keeping gold in Ameri- ca instead of transferring it to London. Anything which would have caused con- siderable shipments of gold from Lon- don to New York would have met their needs for carrying this operation to a successful conclusion. It is matter for fair conjecture, if not for absolute proof, that the demand of London and other European markets for some Af- rican securities, diverting as it did an amount of investors capital away from American channels, has in some meas ure interfered with these calculations
 It is too soon to predict the outcome. The fall in the price of articles for ex- port would unquestionably create pur- chases of these articles on foreign &C., count to such a degree as to avoid the immediate danger of gold shipments. | future prosperity of the United States and the ultimate profits of the syndi- l cate is this: Can prices of export pro-