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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (April 12, 1900)
10 Conservative. the enoiny , simply because they wished to establish their own form of govern ment. A great deal is now being said about the bad faith and action of the Boers as a justification of all this , but this seems to me to have little to do with it , that is to say , if wo are to be governed by Christian principles. "Love your enemies and do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you. " The Boers , contending in vain against the overwhelming force of the English , ready to lay down their arms and sue for peace , which is refused to them by Lord Salisbury , who has , I doubt not , Christian prayers read in his house every day. Forgetting thus not only his professed religion , but also the teachings of his great poet : "The qual ity of mercy is not strained. " These great generals on their return to England will be the heroes of the people ; their portraits , in miniature , will bo worn upon the bosom of maidens and little children. Perhaps some little chap , more curious than others , may ask some one-legged hero of this war , "but what was all this about , and what did they kill each other for ? " And will bo told , "I never knew , but it was a famous victory. " The Queen , of course , must go in state to a Tc Deum. All other nations seeni to be watching each other with suspicion. There are probably more men under arms today than over before , ready to fly at one another's throats at the call of half a dozen men and women. To turn from these national affairs to the facts described in my morning paper , trials for embezzlement , prize fights to come off within a short time. One of our noblest educators has declared that Charles Snmner's great speech on the "True Grandeur of Nations" was a delu sion. Some simple-hearted person might ask : Is Christianity a failure ? JAS. M. BAUNAUD. Boston , March 28 , 1900. NATIONAL BANKS AND PANICS. The following letter , which we clip from the Washington ( D. O. ) Post , was called out by some recent eilverite repetitions of the old shopworn pretense that the banks are guilty of causing panics for the purpose of squeezing the money market. Absurd as this charge is , our readers may not be in command , possibly , of evidence to prove its ab surdity ; we therefore gladly give space to a conclusive demonstration. The writer is known to THE CONSERVATIVE as a careful and capable statisticianwho is not easily misled in his reasoning : Editor Post : The last "Summary of Commerce and Finance , " a publication issued every mouth by the treasury de partment bureau of statistics , contains a table which might possibly be instruc tive to some would-be authorities on monetary questions. To test , by the criterion of simple unimpeaohed fact , the'clairn that the banks may deliber ately bring about a commercial crisis in order to profit by "making money ( scarce and dear , " and in particular to test the truth of the charge that the crisis of 1893 was so brought about , we need only refer to this table , on pages 1412-18. It shows the condition of the national banks of the country , from reports of the comptroller of the currency , and all the resources and liabilities of the three to four thousand national banks appear ing in totals for five dates of each year , beginning with 1891. If the banks really brought about the crisis begin ning in May , 1893 , it must have been with the view of causing the results exhibited in this table. Such changes as are there shown , from the condition reported in the mouth named to such as wore afterward reported , must have been changes that the banks sought to create. In May , 1893 , there were 8,880 national banks , but the number , which had been up to that time increasing , afterward al most steadily fell off , reaching its lowest point , 8,579 , in February last. The figures showing capital stock are more significant. This stock amounted to $688,701,200 when the crisis began , almost the highest value for the decade. It immediately fell off , however , the last figure exceeding $675,000,000 being that for May , 1894 , and the last exceeding $650,000,000 that for July , 1896. The next column of the table shows the net surplus and undivided profits , which had their highest value , $353,105- 867 , in May , 1893. The panic im mediately reduced them , till they stood at $380,296,968 in July , 1894 , and again , after a temporary rise toward the end of 1896 , at a figure almost identical in July , 1897. The amount has since in creased , but the last report showed it even yet short of that at the beginning of the crisis. What is the meaning of these figures ? Evidently that there was less capital invested in banking , and less profit in it , as a consequence of the financial stringency. If the banks caused the stringency , they caused something that reduced the profits of banking and the inducements to enter the business. Next lot us consider the amount of individual deposits. There were $1,749- 980,818 in May , 1893 ; some of the reports for the later months of 1892 showed higher totals , but the difference was not large , and the general tendency of de posits down to the date of the crisis was evidently to increase. But in five mouths the figures had fallen by nearly three hundred millions , or 17 per cent , being but $1,451,124,831 in October , 1898. What are we to say to a theory which asks us to believe that the banks deliber ately sought to reduce the amounts deposited hi them ? Nor was this re duction only temporary , for no figure so high as that for May , 1893 , was reached again until July , 1897. Since the latter date the increase has been nearly steady , keeping pace with the increasing pro duction and commerce of the country. The column headed "Loans and dis counts" tells the same story. These stood in May , 1893 , at a figure , $2,141- 870,027 , only once or twice previously ex ceeded ; they fell in five mouths to $1,830,667,349 , or between 14 and 15 per cent ; they did not reach the May , 1898 , figure again until July , 1898 , but have since then grown steadily. A conspiracy of the national banks to lower the amount of loans and discounts they can keep afloat is something that may per haps be comprehensible by those whose one idea of policy is to fight the banks , but it will be hard to persuade the rest of the community to believe in such a conspiracy. The Canadian banks also reported a falling off in total of notes in circulation and discounts for the years 1894 and 1895 , as compared with 1898. But the crisis having been far less severe there than in this country , the effect is con siderably less marked. The interests of the banking business are in every branch so bound up with the general productive activity of the country advanced by its prosperity and retarded by whatever embarrasses it that it would seem superfluous to vindi cate the national banks against such a preposterous charge as that of bringing about panics so as to profit by tight money. But that charge has been made , and is still made , by conspicuous states men in congress and in the editorial columns of widely circulated news papers ; and it is therefore well worth while to call attention to notorious facts which conclusively refute it. The other charge , that the banks are now planning to lock up gold and so lose interest on their capital for an indefinite period , for the sake of gaining at some unknown time by scarcity of that metal , may safely be trusted to dispose of itself. HENRY FAUQUHAU. Washington , D , 0. , April 1 , 1900. A sensational TEXAS ROMANCE. journalist recently put into current circulation the story that Colonel Bryan , prohibition candidate for the presidency , would soon give up citizenship in Ne braska and acquire citizenship in Texas. This is authoritatively contradicted by the brother of the colonel , who declares the rumor only a Texas romance. The truth is that all the bankers , manufacturers , merchants and farmers of tree-planting Nebraska have peti tioned the colonel to abide within the boundaries of this commonwealth. Colonel Bryan is so obviously a magnet for drawing money into business ven tures in Nebraska , that ho cannot be spared. With other popular populist leaders , Colonel Bryan has lured a vast sum of incorporated capital into this state. Colonel Bryan were it not for