The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-06-28

in on the down side of the market. It is not generally understood that there was hard and fast pool In either of the stocks mentioned but that Messrs. Harriman
 Prick and their Standard oil allies worked together after a fashion, having common
 interests and being able in combination
 to corner the chief sources of supply in
 the money market. Summer is now on us and it may be that the plungers in the
 game have agreed to take a rest and leave the market to take care of itself, taking the precaution, however, to keep
 within telephonic communication in case anything should happen.
 l Gossip about a threatened strike among the employees of the Republic Iron and Steel on account of disagreement over the wage schedule for next fiscal year
 has set the tongues to wagging wisely about the necessity of a general wage lquidation." This sort of exercise Is a more or less harmless amusement, and in the absence of anything very important serves to kill time.
 Nothing Is said, however in these dis
 cussions about the collateral necessity Of liquidation in ''cost of living" an equally mouth filling phrase. As long as the gold imitation continues at the present rate and is supplemented by arrangements for the injection of s5o0,OO0, 900 of diluted as- set currency next fall there Is small pros pect for a reduction in the price of com inodities entering into general household consumption Naturally the tendency would be the other way-an almost inev- itable accompaniment of imitation and ex- pansion in the volume of money.
 The bond market has al 4in f1attened out completely. The big issues of the exhausted the then available supply of important investment capital and the great banking and bond houses which did the under writing and Notation are clearly unwilling to go further just now. Some of the Is sues, notably Union Pacific, are already selling substantially below the prices at which distribution was underwritten. The candidates earliest in the field fared the. best and at the moment there Is nothing in sight for the slow boys. Their day may come later on, for money continues to pile up in the centers.
 John w. Gates is no longer a factor in the stock market yet many people would like to know how he feels on the situa- tion. It may be stated that MT. Gates is still bear on stocks, a position he took before the late rise began and which he has chung to steadily ever since. Early in the spring he invested several million dollars In snort term TdHrOdu Holes
 which are yielding him I to 10 per cent, and he says he is well satisfied to keep out of the stock market.
 The latest statistics show that during the year 1907 railroad capitalization in creased $90S 1000, the aggregate at the
 end of the year being SI6, 100000. The share capital of railroads is given at | $7 45S, ,O0O, 900 and the bonded obligations Ut | $9 0ao,0c ,000. The total resources of rail
 roads appear in the report at SIS, 559 900.
 Earnings for the year were E, eos 000,000,
 an increase from the year preceding of $256, 6,000, GOO or nearly Il per cent. In this connection it will be well to bear in mind, however, that the horrible slump in rail road earnings from which the transpor- tation companies are now suffering did rot take place until the very last end of the year 1907 The first 10b months was the record breaking period in railroad earnings. The total railroad mileage for the United States has reached 22S 900 miles.
 Iron and steel people profess satisfaction
 over the amount of new business originat-
 ing in the city of New York. They point
 with pride to the receipt of new orders, mostly for structural material, averaging
 800 tons a day. This may be all right tor dull times, but does not show up en- couragingly in comparison with the bus
 mess of two and three years ago, when
 single orders were received for 6O00 to 10,- 000 tons of structural stuff for individual
 buildings. About 12,000 tons went into the Hudson tunnel building alone, and more
 than 5000 tons in the new Plaza hotel