Evening star., 1930-05-21
DEMAND FOR BANK
STOCK WIDESPREAD
Large Distribution of New In.
stitution's Securities Is
Now Assured.
BY JOHN F. SINCLAIR.
atch TO The Star.

BY JOHN r. SINCLAIR.
Special Dispatch to The Star.
NEW YORK, May 21.-No bank ever
organized ever had such wide distriou-
ton of its stock as the Bank for Inter
national Settlements, which opens this
week
The central banks of Belgium, Eng
land, France, Italy, Germany, Holland,
Sweden and Switzerland are taking
blocks of the stock, and some are offer
ing the stock for sale to banks and
private investors in their own nations:
The Bank of Japan, like the Federal
Reserve banks in the United States, is
debarred from subscribing to the issue.
But the Industrial Bank is taking Ja-
pans quota, while group composed OF
j. p. Morgan g. Co., the First National
Bank of New York and the First Ma
tional Bank of Chicago are doing the
same in the United States.
Nearly every leading banking institu-
ton in America will have an opportunity
to subscribe to portion of the amount
underwritten in the United States.
Yesterday so great was the demand
for the new bank stock in Paris that
the price was quoted at 140 per cent
premium.
The Bank of England. therefore, de-
cided against offering any OF the stock
in that country for the present.
With the bank stock oversubscribed,
the next big job ahead is selling the
German $500, 900 900 reparation issue.
only one or two points need to be
settled, and then the loan will be offered,
probably around June l." said an i'm
portant American banker yesterday in
commenting ON the forthcoming Ger
man bond issue.
oh ad nj
Europe?" asks a Georgia reader.
The world is getting smaller every day.
Trade between nations 200 years ago
was slow and Insignificant.
When the machine age arrived with
the discovery of steam, each nation
found Its factories and farms could
produce much more than could be con-
sumed by its own people.
From that day to, this, international
trade has assumed greater and greater
Importance.
Every nation today must stand on
its own feet, economically. OF course,
for time any nation can go on llv-
ing on borrowed money, but building a
civilization on borrowed money is like
building on sand.
No nation can go on living indefinitely
unless the sum total of its exports
visible and invisible-are equal to the
amount of its imports-that is, unless
it sells to other nations as much in
value as it buys from other nations.
Most European nations today cannot
meet this test of economic sovereignty.
Thus political sovereignty becomes a
shell
Europe has 80 nations, each trying
to live-each trying to sell as much at
least outside of its borders as it buys.
So the great obstruction to world
progress-particularly in Europe-is the
raising of tariff walls, which are put up
higher and higher every year to Keep
ort the goods offered by other nations.
ro.--gn Minister Brands idea in a
nutshell is this: Let us get together,
drop tariff walls as fast as we can,
eliminate the stupid Instructions to an
expanding trade, and thus eventually
become as strong in our part of the
world as the 48 American States have
become by their free-trade policy, in
their part of the world. We, In Europe,
have four times as many people to
trade with as the United States have.
An excellent idea. Some day
so years or 500 years from now-it
will work. But now, with both Eng
land and Germany suspicious, and Rus
sia completely out of the picture, and
Mussolini's arm-to-the- teeth policy in
force, the BRAND conception is just an
ideaiistic dream.
Still, dreams do come true sometimes! {!
This one will, I believe, even If this
generation does not live to see it.
What about Cuban business and
President Machado? The rumblings
are growing louder, and the riot Sunday
at a political rally Of Machado's op-
ponents, at Artemisa, Cuba, in which
persons were killed and 20 others
injured, indicates that all is not going
well in the sugar-cane country.
: Business depression has ruled Cuba
for several years-ever since the sugar
industry collapsed.
Until recently wholesale arrests have
followed publication of any announce
ment suggesting government waste.
The party in opposition to President
Machado, called the Union Nacionalists,
was not allowed to function as a politi-
cal party. Its strong leader, Carlos
Mendieta, has never been arrested, al
though his associates have often been
rounded up wholesale in many parts of
the island
During the sugar cutting and grind
ing season President Machado forbid
any political demonstrations, due, he
said ito the stress of immediate buSi-
ness workers should not have
their minds disturbed during the zafra"
(sugar-cane season..
Inen Menidleta and his supporters
started newspaper in opposition to
the Machado administration and called
for an open protest meeting of the peo-
pie. Machado warned against It, but
$4,000 dissatisfied Cubans listened hope
fully to the words of the opposition
leaders
In their paper El Voz del Pueblo
(The Voice of the People,, they asked
President Machado and his secretary ot
public works, Carlos Miguel de Cespedes
what had become of all of the $22, ,000,-
600 used in building the new Cubar
capital and of the $80,O00,O00 of Dor.
rowed money used in public highwa,
construction. There was no answer.
At the meeting on Sunday Col
Mendieta. the opposition leader, wa!
present and pressed his charges. rio
followed. Business is at q standstil
and the situation Is tense.
So far United States agents hav,
been watching closely the growing un.
rest. but have said .nothing-fol
publication.
Copyright. 1880, by North American News
paper Alliance.)
MEM CEcIIPITIEc