The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-10-20
HENRY CLEWS'
 WEEKLY LETTER

Financial conditions during the past week have been unusually con- ! fused and uncertain. Both in do-
 mesttc and foreign politics, condi- l tons have been such as to produce uncertainty, if not anxiety. In the prospects of the peace treaty, the ! evidently delicate condition of the Presidents health, and the lack of 1 clear-cut political aHgnments in Con- gress have been disturbing factors.
 Abroad the continued political un- rest in Europe and the slowness | with which readiustner2ts have 1 occurred under the peace treaty, as well the evident social and econo- | mic unsettlement, have created a | situation very similar to that exist | ing here.
 Labor Situation.
 Conditions have been entirely de- pendent upon vague or general re port. The labor situation has on some days presented hopeful fea- | lures and on others seems to be 1 growing worse rather than better ! The weakening of the steel strike 1 and the conclusion of what threat 1 ened to be a serious port strike in 1 New York have been hopeful fac l tors. Offsetting these have been the l apparent growth of the area of the industrial disturbance in various 1 parts of the country, the total num- 1 ber of strikes which have been call ! ed and the aggregate mum Der of men involved, notwithstanding the i ez; sting high level of wages, is suf- 1 ficient to cause and has, in fact, 1 produced anxiety of the most seri- l ous description. It is the opinion of l many careful observers that the la 1 bor situation will be disturbed for l some time to come and that no con- elusive adjustment of it can be had l pending some more positive settle | ment of the price situation. Ad- | vances in wages do no good to the l worker if they are offset as fast as | granted by advan cement in prices | It is being more and more recosniz-
 ed that the settlement of the price problem is practically essential to the adjustment of labor relation ships.
 Money Conditions Dominant
 l Money conditions during the week have been dominant in their import
 ance. Call rates have been as high
 as 15 per cent and have lately rul-
 ed around S to 10 per cent. There
 has been a growth in the volume of redisc0unts at Federal Reserve l Banks and an apparent disposition on the part of some member banks to try to make money by taking ad-
 vantage of the situation growing out
 of high call rate paraueIled by a
 low rate for loans colIateralled by
 government obligations. What with
 the industrial disturbances, the un-
 certainty of the political situation
 and the anxiety growing out of
 money conditions, it is not strange
 that there have been wide fluctua- l tions in stock value. Although dur ing the preceding week there was a
 very general and marked gain in
 prices of industrial shares, especially 1 those of the more reliable sort, there
 has during the past week been a re- action which has wiped out some
 of the gains that had been register
 ed a few days earlier. This reduc-
 ton of values could hardly have
 been avoided except through the
 presence of large supplies of easy
 call money which, as already noted,
 did not exist. As things stand,
 therefore, the further progress of
 the market seems to depend very
 largely upon the industrial and pOii-
 tical announcements from day to
 day since a definite monetary sup
 port is lacking and it is the known
 policy of many of the banks to dis 1 through refusal of call funds beyond
 a certain point or through the ex- action of high rates.
 Although stock exchange valua-
 tions have been unsettled during the week it has been noted with inter-
 est that exchange is holding it's own unexpectedly well. Most of the Eu- ropean exchanges are of course al a low ebb, but they have not of late exhibited the extreme weakness
 which had been predicted by many. Sterling exchange has been firm around SIS and the export figures which have been made public by the government of Great Britain have been encoura ging because they have shown recovery of British ability to | establish an export surplus. On the other hand, the Continental eX- 1 changes although not discouraging have evidently been less firm than Great Britain as a result of this very difference in their position - their smaller ability to promise a recov- cry of export power. German ex- 1 change, with it's low valuation of 3.65c, or thereabout, is by many re- | garded as a good investment and | large balances of German marks l have been accumulated. Others however, recognizing as they do the uncertainty of the German situation, predict a still lower fall for the mark An interesting feature of the weeks developments has been the renewal of the effort of banking interests to obtain government support, moral or material or both, for an export credit plan designed to re-establish the po- sition of the American exporter in foreign markets. The fact that Great Britain has already introduced on a limited scale a system whereby ex- port credits are to be guaranteed has strengthened the argument of the | bankers for action designed to give
 to our shippers competitive power in the contest for trade. As yet there is no indication, however, of any dis position on the part of the govern
 ment to help in this matter with ac tual funds.
 l Low Reserve Percentage
 1 Inflated conditions throughout the | country continue to exist and are il
 lustrated by the fact that the reserve l percentage of the Federal Reserve