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16 (1070)
Survey o
PROSPERITY IN SIGHT.
It is said that iron and steel production
is the modern index to American
prosperity. Commercial reports indicate
that shipments and production of iron
and steel during Auguat broke all records
in Pittsbursr and it is estimated
that September will even surpass August.
Makers of iron and steel have about
all the business they can handle during
the remainder of this year. It is believed
higher prices will be demanded for
all products during the early part of
1913 Demand for iron is greater than
at any previous time during the year
and makers are unable to keep up with
deliveries. Most furnaces in Pittsburg
are working at capacity. 'Some need
repairs but are being kept in blast and
Kill be operated as long as possible.
Demand for plates is greater than supply,
and delivenes are way behind. The
railroads are asking heavy rail deliveries
and are rushing cars to rail
mills. Demand for spikes and track
bolts is heavy. Structural iron has
been given a boost by additional tonnage
placed by some large contracting
tlrms the past two weeks. Denianu
stronger now than for many months and
it is thought production during September
will exceed previous months.
Teh tinplate makers are satisfied with
conditions. Boosting of prices during
the past two weeks has brought out an
increased tonnage. Wire makers are
taking all business in sight and are
working plants at capacity. Wire prices
are strong.
SMALL IIAS LARGE IDEAS.
The standardization in depth of all
canals along the Atlantic seaboard and
public ownership of terminals was urged
by Congressman John H. Small, of
North Carolina in his address to the
fifth Atlantic deeper waterways convention.
Mr. Small had been introduced
as the apostle of deeper waterways. He
followed Charles Elmer Smith, secretary
of the Philadeplia Builders' Exchange,
who read the report of Gen.
W. H. Bixby, chief of engineers, United
States army, in which a favorable report
had been made for a canal 12 feet
deep from Norfolk to Beaufort Inlet, N
C., at a cost of $5,000,000. Mr. Small
added a word to arguments of other
speakers that transportation is a factor
in the cost of living, saying that by
water borne traffic the present high
costs may be cut down. He said that
one arbitrary condition faced by the
seaboard cities dependent upon the
ereat rail linen nnemttn&r hetween the
North and South was that many of
these lines have control of the present
water lines.
TEXAS COTTON.
'Other of our Southern states may
surpass Texas in the square-mile production
of cotton, but in aggregate yield
the great empire commonwealth of the
southwest, known as tho Lone Star
State, leads all other principalities in
the production of the fleecy staple.
Prospects are that cotton in Texas will
exceed last year's record by not less
than 200,000 bales, and if splendid prospects
in north Texas continue until close
of fruiting, excess over lest year mav
reach 500,000 bales, or a total produc
Hon of 4,900,000 bales. According to
? ginners In central and south Texas, cotton
Is turning out much better than
expected two or three weeks ago. Planters
in Austin territory say that the'r
crop will give a production of at least
15 per cent, larger than last years,
when yield was considered remarkably
large. Less than two weeks ago general
estimate of this section was that the
THE PEESBYTERIJ
<f Curren
yield would be 10 per cent short of the
last year. Harvesting In southern Texas
hub piugreB&eu bo ;nu[ it is now Known
that the yield will be larger by perhaps
10 per cent, than last season, except 111
a very few localities. There is no cessation
in rush of cotton to market, and
it is considered improbable that there
will be any falling off in receipts so
long as prices remain around 10 cents.
Should there be a drop, to say 9 cents,
it is believed farmers would 'begin holding.
Already enough cotton has been
marketed in Texas to have a noticeable
effect on other lines of Industry, due to
the fact that farmers are rapidly putting
their money in circulation. In
north Texas, where cotton is three to
four weeks later than in southern
parts, prospects for a record-breaking
yield continue unbroken. Some little
damage is being done, but no serious
losses are likely. Most serious problem,
not only on the farms, but the cities, is
the shortage of labor. There is little
prospect of this situation improving in
the near future.
THE OREGOX M AY.
Barely six months ago a committee
of members of the Oregon State Bankers
Association me; m Portland to discuss
plans for creating greater interest
in agricultural and industrial work in
the public schoolB, sa.vs the Oregonian.
Today, prizes to the value of $20,000
have been promised, already there are
approximately 75.000 school children
who will have exhibits, or three-fifths
of all the children in Oregon, and 88
children's fairs have been reported. In
addition. Prof. C. H. Lane, assistant in
agricultural education at Washington,
D. C.? whoee visit to Oregon last May
was a mark of recognition of the movement
by the national government,
awarded this state a meed of praise
beyond all others. "Oregon," he said,
"has started this work on a broader
scale than any other state. I have never
found a state in which bankers, breeders
and business men have given Indus
trial education such liberal support at
the outset. The next step should be to
make this work an Integral part of the
school system."
TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC.
Secretary Nagle, of the Department
of Commerce has declined to rescind the
stringent steamboat regulations adopted
by his department soon after the
loss of the Titanic. He has refused to
allow coast-wise vessels and lake, bay.
sound and river steamers, except in
Southern waters," to travel after Sep
tember 15th, without lifeboats and rafts
sufficient to protect all passengers and
crew. Mr. Nagel granted permission
for lake, bay, gulf and river steamers
to ply in Southern waters with lifeboats
and rafts enough to accommodate
at one time 60 per cent, of the passengers
and crew. The line at which this
modification will apply was fixed at the
thirty-third degree, about the location of
Charleston, S. C. Danger below that
latitude lg not so great as it would be
farther north, and he does not desire to
work any great hardship upon ship
owners where protection is sufficient.
The secretary said that the ship owners
could easily provide proper equipment,
and must change their boats if
necessary, to make them safe. Protests
that the regulations requiring enough
lifeboats or rafts to save all the passengers
and crew on ocean steamers whose
routes throughout their entire length
are restricted to less than two nautical
miles off shore, are too severe, came
from scores of excursion boat owners.
The regulations adopted provide that
OF THE SOOTH
t Events
coastwise steamers navigating during
the interval from the fifteenth day of
May to the fifteenth day of September,
in any one year, both dates inclusive.
will be required to be equipped with
only such lifeboats and life raft capacity
as will be sufficient to accomlmodate at
any one time at least Bixty per cent, of
all persons on board. The same rule
was made to apply to lake, gulf and bay
steamers.
T1IE NEW BATTLESHIP.
The new battleship Pennsylvania, the
only one authorized by Congress at the
last session, will be fully as large as
the great battleship which the British
government has just ordered, according
to the plans of the Naval General
Board. Its displacement will exceed 30,000
tons, which is about equal to the
addition of a good-sized cruiser's displacement
to the biggest ship the
United States has afloat. The 'Naval
Board already has outlined the features
of the new vessel, and an effort will be
made to get the advertisements calling
for bids for the construction of the ship
before Congress meets in Deceirfber.
i-rogressjve navy men are impelled to
this course by an apprehension that if
the advertisements are not published before
Congress meets the so-called "little
navy" men might use the fact in justification
of their failure to provide for
-ore than one battleship at the last
session, alleging that they had provided
more funds than the Navy Department
was able to expend. They might also
use the fact as a warrant for again limiting
to one battleship the item for the
increase of the navy In next winter's appropriation
bill.
THE CHAMPION FLYER.
France won the world's aviation
championship in Chicago when Jules
Vedrines, champion of France, drivine
a Deperdu88in monoplane, took from
America the James Gordon Bennett silver
trophy without a contest. De Lloyd
Thompson, the only American aviator
who had not withdrawn from the race
up to the last hour, took a final glimpse
at Vedrines' record of 105.6 miles and
walked off the field. Officials of the
Aero Club of America explained their
concession of the trophy to Prance at
the outset by saying that in point of
speed this country had no chance whatever.
Vedrines' time for completing the
124.8 miles over the 4.14 miles course
was lh. 19im. 56.85. His average time
was 105.5 miles an hour. His only
competitors were two Frenchmen, "Maurice
Provost, also in a "Deperdussln, who
made the course in lh. 13m. 10.82s., and
Andre Prey, in a Han riot monoDlanee.
who came down after making 23 of the
30 laps of the course because of engine
trouble.
THE IMPORT IMMIGRANT.
Talking plainly on this subject, which
means money to the operators and
managers, but social loss to the people
and hardship to the Immigrant,
The Journal and Messenger Jays: Businesy
men, coal operators, managers of
great corporations, look on the Immigrant
simply as a unit of labor. We
were told at the Convention at Des
.vioines, py one or the missionaries in
the coal mines, that a representative
owner, in objecting to certain work,
said: "We have imported these cattle,
and what do you want to interfere with
our arrangements for." This was not a
petulent QUtburst of temper, but represents
the opinion of a large number of
men who are actually importing immigrants
for the benefit of working them.
There are several things suggested by
"^1
[September 18,^1912
this remark. First, the importation of
contract labor is forbidden by law.
The law Is evaded. Agents of the steamship
companies, and of the coal operators,
send their agents all over Europe.
These agents are probably not instructed
to lie; but they are paid a commission
on the Immlernnts ho*
? o v-w 6^v.
The steamship companies and coal operators
take care to secure agents who
will do the lying without the necessity
of Instruction. Posters for those who
can read make the grossest misrepresentations,
and the sub-agents personally
see those who can not read. No
doubt a large part of the immigrants
are brought here under deliberate misrepresentation.
To the Importer the immigrants
are "cattle," but to the rest
of us they are voters. They are the men
whom the demagogues can lead. Sometimes
a strong, honest man can lead
them. But we do not want to be de
pendent on physical strength and vitality
for the getting of votes. Often a
man who has no power to reach and stir
these classes has a hundred times more
ability to conduct a government in the
interest of all the people. We do not
want "cattle" for a voting constituency.
The wageB paid by any large employer
are only a part of what the labor costs
society. For society has to provide
schools at an enormous expense for his
children, and is even giving them school
books, and, in some cases, feeding
them. Society, not employer, payB the
cost of hospitals, of insane asylums and
the thousands of charitable institutions,
as well as of jails and courts, and the
cost of government. If the cost of
these things were estimated, it would
be found to be a very "large addition to
the wages paid by the operator. When
a coal operator Imports Immigrants In
defiance of the law, he saddles on the
TT^Haj Otoino n larcro aivm fnr PflO.h
BRIGHTENING SKIES FN CHINA.
Advices from Peking are to the effect
that the project for a great system of
Chinese railways which holds the foremost
place in Dr. Sun Yat Sen's program
for the modernization of China,
has commanded the support of the Peking
government, and may involve a
great extension of the privileges of
foreigners in the country, with possibilities
of an immense increase in
China's foreign trade. Tlje government
has authorized Dr. 'Sun Yat Sen to
establish a corporation to carry out a
system of national railways covering
territory 70,000 miles in extent. Mixed
Chinese and foreign companies will be
granted concessions throughout China
proper for periods of about forty years,
after which time the lines are to revert
to China. Similar concessions are to be
Riven to foreigners for the intermediate
districts, but the railroads In the frontier
provinces will be under exclusively
Chinese control, and will be financed
through foreign loans apart from the
other railways. Dr. Sun Yat Sen's proposals,
which, however, are thus far
without government sanction, include
the opening of the whole of China proper
to foreign residents and enterprise,
foreigners to be amenable to Chinese
laws, through special courts. The
PrArirftVi Aanman nw%A Amarl/ion hflflkS
*" icxisju, vjtv>i man aim rvtuui iv/uu
will participate with Lloyd's bank in
the new loan to China of $50,000,000, the
agreement for which recently was signed.
The terms of this agreement include
the starting of a bank having it"
heart office In London, with a prominent
Rngllsh financier as chairman of the
board of directors, and a subordinate
board at Peking. The bank Is to be
capitalized et $10,000,000. half at which
will be subscribed by Chinese.
WANTEEfc? A successful nhvslclan of
years' experience wants to make p
change. Poisons or niace* Interested
will address. PHYSTCTAV. care" of
Presbyterian df the South.