"September 19, 1874, Vol. 19, No. 482," Commercial and Financial Chronicle (September 19, 1874). https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/1339/item/558459, accessed on April 22, 2025.

Title: September 19, 1874, Vol. 19, No. 482

Date: September 19, 1874
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image-container-0 ontntcrtfa1 AND HUNT’S MERCHANTS’ MAGAZINE, REPRESENTIN'G THE INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES. VOL. 19. SATURDAY. SEPTEMBER 19, 1874. CONTENTS. THE CHRONICLE. The Strength of the Monetary Situation.. ... Mr. Spinnerand the Redemption Bureau 282 Louisiana and the General Gov¬ ern n ent Cotton Movement and Crop of 281 283 1873-4 European Cotton Consumption. Latest Monetary and Commercial English News Commercial and Miscellaneous News THE BANKERS’ GAZETTE. Money Market, U. S. Securities, Railway Stocks. Gold Market, Foreign Exchange, New York City Banks, Boston Banks, Philadelphia Banks. National Commercial Epitome. Cotton Banks, etc Quotations of Stocks and Bonds Investment and State, City and Corporation Finances THE COMMERCIAL TIMES. 298 I Breanstufts... . 299 | Dry Goods.... €i)c <£f)rontcU. 284 288 289 290 291 294 295 302 303 The Commercial and Financial Chronicle is issued on Satur¬ day morning, with the latest news up to midnight of Friday, - TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION-PAYABLE IN ADVANCE. The Commercial and Financial Chronicle, delivered by carrier to city subscribers, and mailed to all others (exclusive of postage):""*' For One Year (including a file cover the first year) For Six Months .....'• Tlie Railway Monitor, $10 00 6 00 a Journal of general Railroad Intelligence, supplementing the financial news contained in the Chronicle, is published monthly on Thursday the fifteenth, or aboht the fifteenth, of each month. Subscription price per year (including a file cover the first year) “ to subscribers of the Chronicle.... $5 00 3 00 7 he Chronicle and Monitor will be sent to subscribers until ordered discon¬ tinued by letter. Postage is paid by the subscriber at his own post-office. Advertisements are published at 25 cents per line for each insertion, bnt when definite orders are given for one month, or upwards, a very liberal discount wifi be made. Advertisements will haee a favorable place when first nserted, but no promise of continuous publication in a particular place can be given, as al advertisers must have equal opportunities. The London Office is at No. 5 Austin Friars, Old Broad street., where subscriptions ate taken at the following rates: Annual Subscription to the Chronicle (including postage) “ “ “ “ Monitor “ “ Chronicle and Monitor together.... 9C. 2 14s. william b. dana, ( JOHN O. FLOYD, JR. WILLIAM B. DANA & CO., PubUsherE, J 79 and 81 William Street, NEW YORK. Post Office Box 4,592. £2 2s. 1 0s. The Publishers cannot be responsible for Remittances unless made oy Drafts or Post-Office Money Orders. A neat file for holding current numbers of the Chronicle is sold at the oUce for 50 cents; postage on the same is 20 cents. Volumes bonnd for sub¬ scribers at |1 50. The first and second volumes of the Chronicle are wanted by the publishers. df A complete set of the Commercial and Financial Chronicle—July, 1565, to date. Is for sa’e at the offlece. Also one set of Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine, 1839 to 1871, eixty-three volumes. THE STRENGTH OF THE MONETARY SITUATION. The great problem which takes precedence just now of most other financial and commercial questions, is as to the prospects of the autumn business. Early in the season we ventured the opinion that there was no ground for alarm as to the monetary mechanism or its move¬ We urged creditors to be easy with their debtors, and debtors we encouraged to hope for exemption this ments. fall not only from the apprehended recurrence of panic, but eyep from the usual full stringency, which for severaj * NO. 482 seasons has regularly disturbed business in the closing months of the year. This advice seems to have been accepted, and the principles of forbearance which have controlled the action of so many creditors towards their debtors, is already bearing good fruit, and will continue so to do. Indications of this are multiplying both in our Western cities and elsewhere. Some of these facts we hope at an early day to have permission to present in some useful form as a contribution to the financial his¬ tory of the times. .As the fall season advances the proofs multiply in sup¬ port of the opinion that for the next six months at least we may expect a tranquil money market. We learn from London that the drain on the Bank of England has ceased, and if ten millions of gold should still be needed from us, we can, without perturbing or crippling our own monetary movements, export that amount of gold or more with ease. Thus the danger is taken away that monetary trouble here might arise from the failing reserves of the Bank of England. On the contrary, our monetary position will, in all probability, be improved by the continued tide of investment which sets this way from the other side of the Atlantic. The United States Consul at llotterdam, in his annual report to the Secretary of State, refers to this movement, and says that, the general confidence in the solidity of United States bonds makes them the means of permanent investment in Europe, and keeps them almost entirely out of speculative transactions. The late catastrophe of the United States railway securities has not produced any important influence on the United States bonds. Though Holland is a great sufferer through the depreciation of American railroad securities, enlightened public opinion does not hold the United States Government responsible for that crisis, or for the actions of those railroad companies which have induced European bankers and the public at large to place their confidence and capital in enterprises the solidity and guar¬ antees of whieh did not realize the promises that had As to railroad securities he is less sanguine, and offers the opinion that on the Continent of Europe so much money has been lost and locked up in such in¬ vestments that the demand for railroad and municipal securities in Holland will be slow to revive, unless legis¬ lative guarantees can be set in operation for the security of foreign capital invested in American railroads and other public works. Notwithstanding all discouragements of this sort, how¬ ever, there is abundant evidence that our money market is receiving large supplies of capital from Amsterdana and other Continental sources ;>nd this circumstance adds been made.
image-container-1 282 to the weight of the arguments which tend to justify confidence in the immediate future of our money market. Perhaps the most gratifying of the recent proofs of the strength and stability of the monetary situation and of its hopeful aspects for the future, is the steadiness of the market under the exciting news with which the telegraph startled the community last Tuesday. ' The outbreak at New Orleans had in it sufficient vague alarm to have put up gold several points in an irritable and sensitive condition of the financial atmosphere. What the disorder ready was able to accomplish, was to cause a feeble advance of a quarter per cent, which was almost immediately lost, while in every other respect Wall street was wholly without visible results from the sudden and unexpected outbreak. This fact is the more gratifying from the circumstance that our British cousins have long been predicting mischief from the quarter whence it has this week arisen, and have made an argu¬ ment out of these prognostications to deter and repel British capital and British emigrants from coming to this country. Foreign newspapers, usually more free from prejudice and more intelligent on American questions, have been taking a gloomy view of our political and financial prospects in the immediate future, and have added another to the long list of proofs of how incapable the untravelled English mind sometimes shows itself of dealing with the social and monetary problems evolved in the freer atmosphere of American institutions. Turning from these general considerations to the inte¬ rior condition of the banks, we find them in a very hope¬ ful condition in several very important respects. Their reserves are large, and, beginning the fall trade with so ample a margin over and above their legal minimum, they are well able to meet the pressure and respond to the demands incident to the season. Moreover, they have been and are actuated by the most conservative caution. Consequently, the state of mercantile credit is more healthy than in previous years. Thirdly, there is less disposition than has prevailed among some of our banks, to withdraw or curtail mercantile accommoda¬ tions in order to lend their money for speculative pur¬ poses. These and many other points more or less impor¬ tant, are cited in support of the opinion that our banks are profiting by the lessons of the late panic. It is to be hoped that they will long continue to do so. MB. SPINNER AND THE REDEMPTION BUREAU. The inflationists will not, we trust, be able to overthrow redemption reforms lately introduced into our national banking system. It is not unlikely that they will try to use for some such purpose the temporary trouble in the new redemption machinery at Washington. It was much against their will that this machinery was set up. For many years the advocates of currency reform have been agitating in favor of an assorting house as a means of giving elasticity to the bank note circulation. These wholesome efforts were thwarted until last summer, when, for the first time since the national banking law of 1863, an efficient system for the redemption of notes was created by the law of June, 1874. The friends of a sound currency, forgetful of the stu¬ pendous nature of the difficulties to be surmounted, con¬ gratulated themselves in the hope that the evil ofYion- redemption was at last provided for by an efficient and practical expedient. There were, however, two classes of obstacles in the way. First, those which were inevi¬ table from the nature and complicated difficulty of the work to be done; and secondly, those which were due to [September 19,1874. , •, ,u„„ the imperfect methods adopted for the^-accbmplishment of the object proposed. Of the latter class of impedi¬ ments we called attention at the time to the more im¬ portant. Of these one or two are already making them¬ selves felt; for example, the redemption machinery has been set up in Washington ; it ought to have been in New York, the financial centre, the railroad and telegraph metropolis of the countiy. To attempt to carry on the new machinery at a point so far from the financial centre, is to invite trouble and insure delay. Again, there is reason to fear that Mr. Spinner has too many inefficient clerks in this new redemption bureau. The rediculous number of one hundred has been men¬ tioned. He does not really need a score. But what he does need, and at present is apparently unable to get, is the right sort of men. If he had sent to New York, to Boston and to Philadelphia, our banks would have been able at a week’s notice or less to have sent on to Washington, five or six experts, and ten or a dozen trained assistants who would, two months ago, have got the redemption machinery into the most perfect order and smooth operation. Instead of this, Mr. Spinner has surrounded himself with a regiment of incapables, and the result is exhibited in the following circular, dated 14th September, the law having been in operation since the beginning of July : “The act approved June 20,1874, entitled ‘An act fixing the amount of United States notes, providing for a redistribution of the National Bank currency, and for other purposes/ requires the Treasurer of the United States to notify each national bank on ' the first of each month, or oftener, of the amount of its circulat¬ ing notes redeemed by him under that act, and whenever the re¬ demptions for any bank shall amount to the sum of $500, to notify it to deposit with him an equal amount in United States notes. The great amount of work suddenly thrown upon this office by the act, which went into effect immediately upon its passage, and the inability to obtain at once experienced counters and assorters, and proper rooms, furniture, books and blanks for its transaction, have rendered it impracticable to comply with these requirements. With the greatest exertions, it has been found impossible to assort enough of the redeemed national bank notes to enable the Treasurer to make calls upon the banks for United Statas notes to reimburse him for their notes redeemed, in sufficient amounts to prevent the exhaustion of the five per cent fund. The Treasurer is therefore compelled to ask the several national banks to make an additional deposit with him of United States notes equal to five per centum of their circulation, to enable him to continue the redemption of their notes pending the assortment of the notes already redeemed. “ The United States notes may be sent to the Treasurer under the contract of the Treasury Department with Adams' Express Company and under the same regulations as are prescribed for the forwarding of notes and currency of the United States for redemption. Thejexpenses of the transportation will be paid by the Department, which will be reimbursed therefor. If any bank shall prefer, it may forward the required amount by its draft on New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, drawn to the order of the Treasurer of the United States, and payable in United States notes. Acknowledgment will be made to each bank for its deposit when completed, by a remittance to it of a certificate in proper form. United States notes unfit for circulation will be accepted in payment of the additional five per cent deposit. As rapidly as the notes of banks making the additional de¬ posit shall be assorted, their amount will be charged against the deposit and the banks informed. Compliance with this request is optional with the National banks, but it is hoped that a prompt and general response will be made to it. It is with great re¬ luctance that this course has been decided upon, and strenuous ex¬ ertions have been made to prevent it from becoming necessary, but it now seems impossible to prevent an interruption in the redemp¬ tion of National bank notes, unless further deposit of United States notes shall be made/' Much clamor has been raised as to who is to blame for these difficulties. Such questions can wait till a remedy has been applied. The banks have their duty to perform, and Mr. Spinner has his. He is an old veteran in the service, and has never been found long at fault in the past. That he should re-organize his redemption bureau, is of course needful. But what should the banks do meanwhile ? Their first step, is of course, to decide whether they will comply with Mr. Spinner’s call. Some are delaying their decision, while others, as the First National of New York, have already responded by THE CHRONICLE. : 1 1 " —
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Date: September 19, 1874
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