The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-12-22
GOLD SHIPMENTS
 ARE FOR EXPORTS Money Rushed from Europe
 Was Not Borrowed COTTON BREAKS RECORD In the Month of November $75, 5,ooo, ,ooo Worth of Cotton Was Exported
 To Europe-Roosevelt On
 the Steel Trust.
COTTON BREAKS RECORD
BY w. G. NICHOLS,

LOOK as thought the gold We nave been importing from the other side was not borrowed, but money paid to us for things we had sold. The official state ment of imports and exports for Novem- Der show $75o0O,O0O worth of cotton sold and shipped in that one month alone, a total which is said to be record breaking Shipments since the beginning of the present month have also been very heavy in cotton and away above the average in many other of our staples. A recent week shows ss,OOo,oOO bushels in wheat exported from the United States out of a worlds total exports of S000,000 bushels.
 Exports of merchandise for the first Il months of the year footed up in ex- cess of s1,7oO. 100000, or at the rate of about $500. .000. 900 a year, a balance of trade in our favor of more than $4Oo,- 000, 900. Instead of allowing an enormous balance to remain idle in Europe it pleased us to draw thereon to meet home indebtedness and to tide over a period of unusual stringency. The bookkeeping analysis taken at the end of the year will undoubtedly show that instead of being painfully in debt to the old world we will still have a comfortable balance upon which to draw In the event of fur ther emergency; also that our neighbors across the Atlantic will have to buy largely of Us for food and clothing. Very naturally being generous spirited and having wealth galore, we will carry back large sume next summer on our annual tours, but that will be for and at our own pleasure. If we are seized with a fit of economy we may elect to send for the money and spend 1t at home As people get a clearer under standing of the international balance sheet a knowledge will come to them most re- assuring and confidence inspiring. It will appear in the light of these figures that We are a creditor nation instead of a debtor and that we are merely collecting our own when we send abroad for $100- 000.000 or more of gold in settlement. Then will the spectacle be presented of wholesale buying of some of the securi- ties which have been sacrificed under the hammer and in obedience to a panic spirit when it Is everybody for himself and the devil take the hindmost.
 Incidentally, in connection with this matter of international trade, 1t may be stated that quite a speculative fever has taken possession of the gambling ele- ment in favor of higher prices for wheat. The statisticians and spectators out in Chicago have carried their propaganda into the east. They are impressing the people hereabouts that wheat is a buy anywhere under $1.- bushel.
 They are telling everybody that Amer | ica has about the only available surplus for export and that the old world will be willing to pay any old price to keep from starving to death As a factor in the present bull situation 1t issmentioned that the two newborn Napoleons of finance, Brandt Walker and juvenile invader from Boston by the name of Livermore, are short about 100000 bushels of wheat each on the Chicago Board of Trade. Inquiry having developed the fact that these two operators are safely mar galnedf the inside gang on the Chicago board has gone after the money
 It is one of the tenets of the Chicago board of trade to let no outside money es- cape. Walkers money can hardly be called outside money in the strictest sense of the word for that spectacular plunger was for many years an active member of the Chicago organization, but he had been away long enough to come under the general classification. The Chicago board of trade has an unbroken rec ord of 50 years of getting every big chunck of outside capital that mad vertently strayed within it's sphere of influence.
 In that time 1t has pulled off some good sized chuncks at that, including s. 000,00 from James R. Keene.. Sl0,000,000 from McGeoegh & Plankngton of Mill waukee, $1O0O0, 900 from Pillsbury, the Min neapois miller; $l0000,000 from Flood. Macakay & Sharon, the bonanza trio; s1o.- 100000 from F. l.. Harper and the FL dalt Mol pL af other ones almost as large. When there was no outside money to go after, the big plungers on the Chicago board ate each other up. One time they landed Joe Letter and his father for s12,Oo0,000. In the light of these great past perform ances, Livermore and Brandt Walker will hardly class as chicken feed.
 By drawing on the resources of their auxiliary companies, New York Central. Pennsylvania and other big railroad systems will be able to pay their an- nual dividends. It is a question, however, whether the extraordinary effort re- quired to raise the money with which to pay these dividends will go to restore confidence or to inspire new buying.
 The New York Central is notoriously running behind dividend requirements and Is face to face with immense future de- mands for the financing of Improvements to which it Is committed. The terminal work in and about New York alone will call for the further outlay of possibly s3O,O000O0 to O0O0,0O0 and the case of Pennsylvania is quite as formidable. In the latter instance, however, there will be no real difficulty in raising the money that will be necessary That system is the greatest earner in the world and it's resources are beyond anything which has yet been put into figures.
 There is strong belief that New York Central has before 1t a long period of hard sledding and that in it's struggles to maintain dividends at the current rate it Is straining itself dangerously near the rupture point. There is likely to come a time when the subordinate companies can no longer stand drain such as is now being impressed. The New York Central is the most conspicuous American example of the inefficiency of long dis tance management. For about nine months of every year official direction of the road Is located in Europe and nothing important can be done here while the head of the corporation Is away from home.
 Thus far, rebellion against William K. Vanderbilt has taken no stronger form than disorganized protest and an unutter- ly demoralzed board of directors. The periodic meetings of the directors of New York Central have been likened by those who have been there to Donnybrook Fairs In points of strenuosity.
 The stock market during the last week has not been especially eventful in an important way. The money sit- uation, while slowly improving. Is yet far from being such as to give real encoura cement to speculation for a rise.