Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-07-14
Change In Right Direction.

Change In Right Direction.
Following the crop statement came the
United States Steel Corporations show
Ing OF business expanded and larger
profit earned. The increase in either par
ticular is small compared with the vast
ngures which make up steel trust totals,
put what Is important is that such change
as has taken place is change in the right
direction OF larger production. better
financial returns.
Much new ado is made over the foreign
financial situation. Conditions in Eng
land and in Germany particularly are
challenging attention and provoking seri-
GUS consideration. British consols keep
on going to lower and lower records
standard investment securities in every
european quarter are sliding in concert
reason for this Is easy enough to dis
cover It has little to do with politics,
trade recession, labor complications or
any of the other familiar bogies peren-
nially set up by way Of explanation, and
which aim at the soothing effect OF in
ducing sentiment to regard this market
disturbance as due to exceptional, spo-
radio causes and destined to be but tenn
porary. What Is truth does not admit of
any such disguise. The swamping fact
IN the security markets of the world to-
day Is that floods Of new stocks and
bonds have been Embossed and the en-
Darrassment Is not merely in the volume
"a SAA0 ASW SdPlldAZdliOH. 1U0 investors
OF the world are confronted with appeals
for support to an extent whose immensely
is incalculable. supplemented by competi-
tive offers OF higher and higher dividend
and interest payment. Some of these
towering enterprises have much that is
seductive in their call, and 1t is no won
der that a financial whirlpool develops
wherein every element of avarice con-
tributes to influence an owner to sell the
older lower paying investments for what
IL newer and fdr more nr0fif hle-rnnrea
profitable for the present at least
Conditions Abroad.
British consols are merely marking
time to this condition. At Berlin and
Paris the same phase shows It Is not
difficult to find hints OF it here-hfnts
that are blows. and felt already in quar-
tiers that never hitherto have seemed sus-
ceptible to such temptation. Tobacco,
standard Oil and q score of other stu
pendous mysteries are buoyant enough
most OF them are reaching toward dizzy
heights. But the bond market, among
the staid old preferred railway shares,
security has been preferred. the story is
one Of depressing contrast Finally It
really looks as IL into even the most ul-
ira conservative places the speculative
germ has bored far In.
No recent year has witnessed aught an
preaching what we have done in the first
half of 1912 in the way Of issuing new
securities, for which an absorbing mar
ket can be made only at the expense
through the liquidation-of older lower
paying ones.
The unresponsiveness OF the public to
Wall streets call Is illustrated signif1-
cantly In what comes to pass In the COP
per situatiOn-in the situation for COP
per the metal as well as for copper mines
and shelters capitalized into stocks We
have had phenomenal developments in
copper. The rapid and substantial ad-
vance IN the market for the metal-re-
nected IN price per pound not ap-
preached for years-fndS justification in
trade statistics. Consumption outruns
production, phenomenal expansion in
electric construction throughout the
world calling for an allotment Of COP
per metal far exceeding any calculation
that optimists have ever ventured Own
ers OF copper producing properties,
whether in the trust or altogether inde-
pendent, are making money-every one
upon a scale measured only by the ex-
tent to which production is pushed. Some
silly tales have been given circulation
representing that volumes of the metal
have been hidden away, making the met
al market therefore an artificial one; but
the fable is ludicrous. The copper metal
situation is not merely healthful, it is in
any possible recent comparison unprece-
dentedly encouraging.
Ignore Changed Conditions.