The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-06-25

porations are in the hands of men whose
 stock ownership is practically negligi- ble.
 What effect is the dissolution of the standard Oil and American Tobacco companies to have on the ownership of te Subsidiary companies owning them? None,' would be the offhand answer. But Il is doubtful If this would be cor rect except for very limited time. It vas James J. Hill who remarked
 tbat certain famous court decision
 meant that stockholders would get one
 blue and one green certificate in place
 Of one red one, and that that would be
 the total result of the decree. The Standard oil and the American Tobacco companies will have to devise many
 colors in order to comply with the re- cont supreme court decisions. At first the owner of the present share may simply deposit his variegated collection in his strong box where he kept the original certified tes, but when estates come to be divided up some of the heirs are likely to get certain colors and others others. Gradually, too, it is ex- pected there will come about changes in
 the ownership of subsidiaries. That, however, is matter of the future. | How Is business? The closing weeks | of the first half of 1911 find American | financIers better satisfied with the out | look than they were when the year be- | gan, and the best opinion Is that at the | opening of 1912 prosperity will be more pronounced than it Is today or has been during the last eighteen months. The current year has brought disappoint- | ments. but it has also brought encour- agement After twenty years corpora tfons are at last learning how they may conform with the Sherman law, and by l the opening months of 1912 the legal method. of conducting huge interstate 1 industrial enterprises should be clearly | defined and sanctioned by the courts, | This is a long step forward.
 | Agriculture, money, our trade balance and politics-these fundamentals have done well during the first half of 1911. | The government and private reports
 covering the cotton prospects show con- clusively that an unprecedentedly large
 acreage has been planted and that the
 early condition of the staple is very promising, hence the expectation of a | bounteous crop Is Justified. Then the government elaborate statistics on the grain crops issued last week are also | full of encouragement. A yield of | iS0, 100000 bushels of winter wheat Is | foreshadowed while the unparalleled
 acreage under spring wheat suggests | the possibility of a harvest of nearly 76b, 100000 bushels, or considerably greater than produced in any year here | tcfore. The American money market has been entirely satisfactory from the | business viewpoint.
 Our foreign trade balance at the end | of June should exceed s500,000,000, | thanks to exports of greater volume | than ever before attained-a position | radically different from that of last year. Furth ermore, the promised abun- dance of cotton and wheat should en- | able us to export very large amounts | during the second half of the current year, and the quietness in domestic
 trade, combined with the lowering of
 costs, tends to stimulate exports of gen. | eral merchandise.
 Therefore 1t may be confidently be
 said, business is all right.
 | Several importing merchants and
 bankers of Saloniki, Turkey, are in this 1 country for the purpose of making a | commercial tour of the United States. 1 This trip was suggested to them by
 Cousul t<sorge Horton of Saloniki with l a view to increasing American trade in | the Levant.
 | The visiting business men will bring with them samples of cotton goods, | hardware, etc., to show the class of l goods in demand in Turkey. They will
 be interested in varied line of textiles, shoes, rubber footwear, flour, cottonseed | oil, agricultural implements, furniture, | hardware, chemicals. etc, and wish to | visit American factories and to meet | American business men. French Is | spoken by the members of the party.