The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1899-12-22
Signs Of an Approaching Storm.

L ne following uOteS are tIOut stHe tIdeie
barometer of last week:
Men desiring to speculate in the future
are halted, marking time, until they know
in what condition the worlds framework
OF credits will be. in January and Febru-
ary The chances of a break i'll it are
deemed so good by experienced judges
that the worlds great money-lenders are
asking at Berlin, Paris, London and New
York the highest rate for ten years past.
In Berlin the Bank Of Germany has issued
$40, 900, 900 of notes in excess of the or
binary legal limit in order to ease the
money market. London has made no
additional advance, but has already the
highest rate since 1890"
These are indications which precede
every financial storm or panic All panics
spring from the same cause which are not
produced by planned conspiracy among
money sharks
The present activity in business rests
principally on credit. AS business ex-
pands the demand for money to support
it increases and the banks eager for bus
mess and profits increase their loans to
meet the demands for money. Every
note they discount is the same as coming
that bill, payable into money for the time
being. The checks the borrower sends
into the bank against his deposit, y
which is the intangible, invisible money
his note, payable with tangible money in
the future, represents in the bank as
cash deposit, are met with the cash de-
posted daily.
This system works all right for moving
business as long as sufficient cash is de-
posted to balance or cash the inaowing
checks, but as soon as the loans or credits
of the bank have been expanded SO far
that the checks of borrowers coming in
against their book credits call for more.
cash than comes into the bank, the bank
will have TO put up its shutters and
wind up.
The bankers watch for and avoid these
rocks as far as possible and begin to refuse
loans when they apprehend the danger
point is near. The business that has been
running right along under full head of
steam, steadily expanding and demand
ing more in place of less money, is sud-
denly checked. The bank can't loan
any more, but the business man must
have money to meet the present emer-
gency or be wrecked. The dangerous
rock or shoal is right before him, and he
is in the condition of steamship out of
coal in mid ocean. It's more coal or
founder with the ship. and it's more
money or business failure with the mer
chant, manufacturer or other business
operator, and he goes to the street and
offers often as high as hundred per cent
for short time to get out of his immi-
nent danger
This is what is now happening in
Europe They may be able to escape the
present threatened storm, and tide over
the difficulty by paying the money sharks
the heavy discounts they ask for the
money they have boarded up, cornered
for such occasion, out of the worlds
supply. But the same cause will create a
similar condition in the not far future
when credit has SO expanded that money
cannot be had to meet its demands, then
panic sets in, the business cyclone strikes
and demolishes everything in IFS path.
Europe and America will both be in its
destructive path. The gold system covers
both hemispheres as far as it has extend
ed, with its narrow money basis and im-
mense balloon Of credit anchored to it.
This is the history and cause Of every
panic that has swept this and other
countries in the last hundred years or
more. Such .panics will be of greater
destructive power in the future. The
world is bound more closely together by
steam and electricity than ever before.
Business men and firms transact business
with each other beyond the oceans and
their relations are as close as those in the
same town.
The world is in need of more money,
and its needs are increasing, aud all the
silver and all the gold in the mines and
supply the demand, but the monopoly in
money insist that they can supply it by
issuing credit. They never have been
and never will be able to do it. But the
government of these United States has
power to supply the need, by issuing its
own law-made legal tender currency based
OH all the wealth of all the people, aud in
this haven of safety must we anchor at
last.
The governments credit is stronger than
that of all the banks which were ever
chartered or ever will be- The wealth of
all the industry of all the people is
thou sand times greater than all the gold
Of all the mines in the earth. All that
is lacking is the exercise of the ordinary
common sense and intelligence of the
people.
There was the beginning of a
frightful panic in New York last