Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1900-06-28
MONEY Is VERY SCARCE.
InadeQuacy OF the Worlds supply
ALI Gold Standard Countries
Feel the Pinch.

Inadequacy OF the Worlds supply
ALI Gold Standard Countries
Feel the Pinch.
The last number of the Investors
Review. of England, published by A. j.
Wilson, contains the following under
the caption, Nemesis:
Perhaps in this age whose faith is
that might is right; that he should take
who has the power. and he should keep
who can; when materialism, in short,
of the grossest kind appears to have
taken the place, in the majority of
minds, of any higher ideal or fragments
of nobler faith-our attitude may be
ascribed to atavism. Be that as it may.
we do retain the conviction that evil
doors meet with their due reward,
even in this world; that if men commit
crimes, or lend themselves to the COM
initial, they will suffer for it; that in
the case of wars, as Lowell sang:
If you take a sword and dror It.
And go stick a Teller thru,
Guv mint amt to answer for 1t,
God'll send the bill to you.
We shall not dwell on this personal
and individual aspect of the present
fratricidal strife pounding and fioun-
dering along in South Africa, because
the object of this article is to draw at
tention to broader national aspects of
the Nemesis of suffering and disaster
which is preparing for us as a nation.
Let us come down to the sordid things,
and interpret fact and the forecasts
of these and these alone. Is it not be-
ginning to be plain to even the least
instructed mind that this war is going
to bring vengeance upon us even long
before it is finished? Look at the posi-
ton of our money markets and of our
stock markets, to come at once to plain,
practical issues. Compared with the
highest price of last year the deprecia-
ton on consols alone to-day exceeds
s Sc, 100000. In all other securities of
what may be described as the highest
investment class the same depreciation
has gone on, as the following brief
table will indicate. We take the price
of June. 80 last as being those of date
when few people really grasped the
fact that Mr.. Chamberlain, Sir Alfred
Miner and Messrs Rhodes, Belt & Co.
were iaboring might and main to bring
war upon US. Highest prices" in most
instances, would show loss much more
severe than the 6 AZ, 100000 exhibited
on the % stocks selected as examples.
"To estimate the gross amount of the
loss of nominal capital that a similar
depreciation over the entire list of pub
lie securities means is labor beyond
the necessity of our argument; but it is
certainly not less than e 250,O0O, 900, and
is on its way to be twice that, for the
end of the decline is not yet in sight, is
indeed but beginning. AS the months
roll by the loss is certain to increase at
accelerated speed, and with each step
in the decline the embarrassment of
orr credit market increases"
No reader, we suppose, ever stops to
examine the foundations of our mar
velous system of credit, to ask himself
when he pays away check what the
amount written upon it is composed of.
He regards it as SO many sovereigns.
You draw check for 100, and it is
to all practical purposes, as long as
honored, a check of 100 soyereigns. AS
matter of fact. however, it is only so
much banking credit that is thus
transferred from one bankers ledger
to another, and if the component ele-
ments of this sum were, to say, chem
ically analysed, it would be found to
consist of minute portions of an almost
endless variety of securities. Along
with a bundle of consols and perhaps
Northwestern railway stock or little
Galatians" traces might be found of
LIE Roi shares, "Associateds, "Char-
tereds," Rand mines, Go1dfields, Mata-
beles. Ashantis, Lipton's Salt Unions, |
Tvanhoes, list that might be indefi- |
nitely extended. In other words, banks |
in the course of their business have |
given customers credit more or less |
well secured upon every description of |
stock or share dealt in on the public |
The credit thus created is called |
money" and passes from hand to
hand through checks and other instru-
ments of transfer from banker to
banker as money. So long as the bor
rowers of this credit, at whose instance
1t has been originated by the banker,
are able to pay interest charged against
heir loans, and to make good the mar
gins upon the securities pledged, all
goes well; but when the day comes that
inds them unable to do either the one
,r the other, then the banker has to
ace a loss, and in proportion to the
oss the amount of bank-created credit
circulating in the market is diminished.
An elaborate essay might be written
n illustration of the statement con-
aimed in these few sentences, but it is
just yet. Our immediate
object is to point out that the shrink
ge in the market price-not alone of
he miners and bubble industrial or
'ther trading companies whose names
We have cited-is having direct inf1u-
nee in curtailing resources of our
anking institutions as a whole As
ume, for the sake of argument, that
he total depreciation has reached
100000, 900, and it follows inevitably
hat no small portion of this has pro-
uced an unfavorable effect upon bank
ng resources. If eonso1s have depre-
lated upwards of 6 SO 900, 900, from the
ighest price of last year, ans upwards
f 100000 since the 1st of July last, {
follows that whatever amount of Y
Dnsols has been utilized for creating
redit is to the extent of this depre
iation less efficient than it was. When I
onsols were at III a borrower could I
btain perhaps credit to the extent of n
105 upon each e 100 nominal of the C
tock lodged. Now that they are down a
Dar he cannot ret mere than 95 adj t