The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-07-26
DECLINE IN STOCKS
 IS $1,766,799,O ,OOO
RIG AMOUNT OF WATER
 SQUEEZED OUT IN ONE YEAR.
Fictitious Values Gone-Result is Due to the Readjustment of
 Speculative Prices.

Chicago Tribune.
 Market values of the great volume of railroad and industrial stocks traded in in New Yorfk at the present prices snow shrinkage in the last year Of Sl'ISo' 79e,00O, compared with the high prices of 1902.
 The meaning of the figures Is not to be misunderstood by assuming they repres- ent a sweeping away of established ana so-calIed intrinsic values. In great part they represent a loss in ephemeral prices established by extraordinary speculation.
 It is not to be presumed that the pur- chaser of Chicago and Northwestern stocks, for instance, at the high price or 27l, which was touched last year. Is still holding that stock at the price last we'd nesday of f6l Ia The losses have heen distributed on the way down and orSy small portion of the capital stock of the company was traded in at those inflated values. To continue the illustration with Chicago and Northwestern stock, 1t may be supposed that a'purchaser Of the shares around 150 saw them advance to 27l. He was on paper the gainer by lA poInts Now that the stock has shrunk the holder has lost no actual wealth. but he has lost paper profit. Chicago ana Northwestern stock was particularly ao- vanced by buying for control when some Well street interests were willing to pay high prices in order to get the stock Tor voting purposes.
 This enormous defiation in prices has come about through a headjustment of speculative and fictitious values, the holder of numerous underwrittlngs ma ing themselves unable to sell the sec uritIes they subcribed for because the actual returns in dividends and pros pective advances had reached limit.
 Then last autumn the money market began hardening when the British, Ger man, and French bankers became alarm ed over the sitution in this country and asked the borrower in Wall street to pay of some $1OO 900 in loans owed abroad. From that time until now money rates for time loans /have been high. It has not profited a specuator to buy, for in- stance. St. Paul at 190, getting on his ln- yestment an interest return of 3.7 per cent per annum, while paying and per cent on borrowed money with which to pur- chase the stock. It Is now a matter of stocks commanding prices which will re- turn the investord per cent or more In dividends. being an amount something like money brings in the loan market.
 Twice the National Debt.
 The national debt Is approximately Se3l. .7SO,OOO. so that the shrinkage fin the market values of the stocks enumerated here is almost twice the amount of tho national bonded debt. The losses in these values, such as they are. presented here do not cover the entire range of stocks and do not include any bond issues. But that the holders of securities could lose $l, 700, 100000 in profits without any note worthy failures Is a cause in some in- stances of astonishment and in others of congratulation.
 But 1t will be found as indicated that the losses in the main are not substantial, but represent the falling away of a fic- titiously created value. It was not there in the first instance. and so can not be considered as an absolute destruction of value. During this eight months' shrinkage| a