The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-10-23
FINANCIAL SURGERY.

ftNftNSiNG
In banking as in other operations, the
time comes occasionally when nothing
but critical surgery will avail to re-
store normal health; and when such
cial even if it is extremely painful for
the patient.
New York has just witnessed such
an occasion, and in this instance, F.
Aug. Heinze. c. w Morse and their
associates furnished the subjects for
as neat a wholesale clinic as could have
been devised. Just what conditions ex-
listed will probably not be known un-
til the affair has become a memory and
it's attendant excitement has subsidized
but the United Copper magnate and
his friends were amputated from all
banking connections in New York as a
condition of clearing house assistance
to banks under suspicion because of
their connection with the Heinze COM
binatiOn.
Unhappily, the public feels the con-
sequences seriously because the opera
ton was attended by a shock that was
felt in financial circles all over the
country. Some one had violated all the
rules of banking, and the public, in a
large measure, has to bear the cOnse-
uuences. The one consolation in the
situation is that the shock was precip-
itated in time to avert fatal results;
and a panic which might easily have
devastated the whole country has been
forestal1ed by drastic measures taken
in time to prevent such a calamity.
In Utah, as well as in all the copper
producing centers, the ultimate effect
of the upheaval ought to be for good.
The price of metal is expected to re-
main at a low point until accumulated
surplus stocks have been absorbed; but
when operations are resumed on a
large scale it is unlikely the lesson this
year will be forgotten. A range of
prices had been established that could
not be maintained with the heavy pro-
duction induced by big profits; in fu-
ture dealings it is unlikely producers
will permit such enormous accumula-
tions as have crushed the market with
in the past six months. On the con-
trary, if the experience counts for any
thing, the price viii be maintained at
a point where normal profits will CO.
incide with normal demand, the temp
tation to over-production will be want
ing, and operations can be carried on,
if less profitably, still on a permanent
basis.
The steel corporation has established
the policy of discouraging abnormal
prices for fear of violent reactions; the
copper producers of the country can
profit by the same policy, and every
thing points to their adoption of the
same plan. While the price of cop
per may go still lower for a short time.
it has got down now to a point where
at a profit, and where consumers can
afford to buy for legitimate demand.
Both these factors will tend to give the
market stability so that there seems
the future of the metal
In general commercial finance, the
next two or three weeks ought to see
considerable relaxation of the pressure
for money in the big centers. The
movement of export grain and cotton
ought to abate any chance of gold ex-
ports; the influx of foreign cash for
commodities Europe has to have; the
return of crop money to the eastern
banks as shipments increase-all these
conditions. Unless something unfore-
seen happens, the first of November at
the latest. ought to see a great inn
provement in banking and commercial
conditions.