The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-09-20


 The demand upon the subscribers to the Morgan steel bond conversion syndicate
 is accompanied by the declaration of an
 Irish dividend" Gan assessmenD. The
 strike for cash is presented in two forms
 one or the other of which the subserib- CTS must submit to. If the members of the syndicate grant the oemand for nine
 months additional leeway, they will only be called upon to pay into the Morgan 1 firm $50O0,000 If they conclude they have : had enough stock placed in the custody of the Morgan firm they will have to pay their proportion of $20, COG, 900 for a release from the contingent liabilities involved . in the undertaking. When the syndicate was formed the subscribers turned in $S0, GOO. 900 in preferred stock which was to be converted into bonds and also com mitted themselves for SEQ, GOO, ,0O0 in cash to carry out the deal That was eighteen months ago when the preferred stock was selling close to par and the common stock around 45 or 50 During the entire intervening period. the subscribers who put up their preferred stock have had no
 use of the securities and all they have had to show for their property were the receipts of Morgan x Co.,, which had no hockable value and were unavailable as collateral. They now have their first chance of taking down the stock deposit ed with Morgan S Co.,, but to do this they must stand an assessment of $20 a share. The stock Is now selling under S70 and the payment of additional $20 for a release from the underwriting agreement would bring the stock down to $50 a shared loss of 50 per cent on their commitments. They would stand show at some indefinite time in the future of getting back all or a part of that $20 as- sessment, the extent of the favor depend- ing entirely on the syndicate manager, Morgan. The proposition made by the Morgan firm has been received in Wall street with varying comment. In some quarters it is held to be an expression of confidence by MT. Morgan that if he is given nine months more to nurse the deal he will be able to carry 1t through sue cessfully, and that this expression at the present time is favorable market indica tions. On the other hand there are crit ics unfriendly enough to say that if any other firm of bankers had tried to do a thing of that sort it's credit would be at once assaled. In the case of the dssolu- tion of the Realty syndicate, the securi- ties put up by the underwriters were re- turned to the owners together with their proportion of the $11 GOO in cash ad- vanced Subscribers to the Steel conver- sion syndicate were not called upon in the beginning for cash, but have to make it up In part or entirely at the latter end of the game They can not even get their property back without submitting to heavy penalties.
 The prompt measures taken by Secre- tary Shaw to discourage the retirement of circulation has taken by surprise many crafty bankers who were planning profitable deals by selling the bonds on deposit for circulation and then using them as collateral for government depos- Its. As has been explained this process nullified the efforts of the secretary to supply an increased volume of money Curing the crop moving period. It Is not known if he took official cognizance of the play or not, but word passed along the line that if 1t were not stopped bank CTS who were trying to make money that way would receive no deposits of gov ernment funds. Loud complaints are go- ing up from those whose plans have been disarranged. but the financial community as a whole Is laughing and turning q smile of appreciation upon the secretary. MT. Shaw has shown several times that