Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1900-07-11
MONEY Is VERY SCARCE.
4nadeQuacy of the Worlds supply
All Gold Standard Countries
Feel the Pinch

1nadequacy Of the worlds Supply
All 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 sword and dror It,
And 60 stick a Teller thru,
Guvmint 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
II 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
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-
& 50,00O.0OO. 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 laboring might and main to bring
war upon us. ''Highest prices" in most
instances, would show loss much more
severe than the e43,00o,OO0 exhibited
on the rs stocks selected as examples.
ITO estimate the gross amount of the
loss of nominal capital that similar
depreciation over the entire list of pub
lie securities means is a labor beyond
the necessity of our argument; but it is
certainly not less than e 25O,OO0, 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
our 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 a check for 100, and it is
to all practical purposes. as long as
honored, a check of 100 sovereigns. AS
a matter of fact, however, it is only so
much banking credit that is thus
transferred from one bankers ledger
to another, and if thee 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 bundle of consols and perhaps
Northwestern railway stock or "little
Chathams' traces might be found of
lie Roi shares, "Associateds," "Char-
tereds," Rand mines, Goldfelds. Mata-
beles, Ashantis, Lipton's Salt Unions,
Ivanhoes, list that might be indefi-
nitely extended. In other words, banks
in the course of their business have
given customers credit more or less
we'll secured upon every description of
stock or share dealt in on the public
market. "
The credit thus created is called
"money," and passes from hand to
hand through checks and other instru-
11CutS w. lIduSleT lTOu, Ddnker 10
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
their loans, and to make good the mar
gins upon the securities pledged, all
goes well; but when the day comes that
finds them ur able to do either the one
or the other, then the banker has to
face loss, and in proportion to the
loss the amount of bank-created credit
circulating in the market is diminished.
An elaborate essay might be written
in illustration of the statement con-
tanned in these few sentences, but it is
unnecessary just yet. Our immediate
object is to point out that the shrink
age in the market price-not alone of
the miners and bubble industrial or
other trading companies whose names
we have cited-is having a direct influ-