Readings in Money and Banking Part 73

When the policy calls for the raising of funds by the issuance of bonds rather than stock, the appeal is to a wider and to an anonymous public rather than to a corporation's own stockholders. Frequently the appeal must be to a cla.s.s of investors situated in another section of the country or even in a foreign country. Most railways have not the technical organization nor the established market necessary to handle their issues easily, and usually it is found that in spite of the often exorbitantly high commissions which the bankers exact for their services, the net result is more satisfactory than that secured through the railway's own efforts. To the extent that this is the case, the bankers are performing a service of genuine economic value, and it must be concluded that under present conditions such service cannot readily be dispensed with.

a.s.suming this service as a necessity, the next step is for the banker to seek representation upon the railway board. His house has made itself responsible for a large issue of securities. It appeals to the investing public, not technically guaranteeing the issue, but practically doing so because of solicitude that its reputation for the handling of high-grade securities shall not be impaired. It seeks therefore to protect its own standing, and at the same time to make the securities more attractive to its customers, by demanding a place on the board of directors from which it can follow in detail the employment of the funds secured through its a.s.sistance. Large investors like life insurance companies, savings banks, fire insurance companies, guaranty companies, trust companies, demand as a prerequisite to purchase of securities that the underwriting house shall be represented on the board. The railway's credit--its ability to sell its issues--is dependent frequently upon the presence on its directorate of this representative. However, the banker is not in the position solely of a spectator or a detective. His expert advice is sought and usually followed. Often he is in a position where he can stipulate conditions under which alone he will undertake to provide the funds required, and such stipulations are frequently of immense influence in furthering efficient railway management. A recent example is found in the furnishing of money to the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company by Kuhn, Loeb & Co. under a stipulation that the road must put back into its property each year a certain amount of its earnings.

Instances might be multiplied in which railway corporations have been saved from disaster and set upon their feet through the aid of those who have furnished the funds, and who have stipulated in connection therewith that in order to insure their knowledge of all transactions, and to give them a position from which they might bring their influence to bear, they should be granted representation on the railway board.

Of course it must be admitted that the power of the banker may be misused to his own private advantage. The power is there--the power to refuse funds--the power that comes from command of enormous sources of capital, the prestige gained by years of successful experience. Men who have attained such a position have the personal qualities that give them naturally a commanding place in any council of business men. When such men dominate the policy of a railway and the results are disastrous, it is exceedingly difficult fairly to fix the responsibility and a.s.sess the blame. The line between good faith and good judgment or between personal ambition that amounts to breach of trust, and a misplaced optimism concerning the outcome of a specific policy, is a very difficult line to draw. Although praise and blame cannot be a.s.signed with any precision between Mr. Morgan and Mr. Mellen in the unfortunate New Haven situation, it is the prevailing opinion of the New England public that it has not been benefited greatly by the presence on the New Haven board of the distinguished banker member. Generally speaking, however, the powerful banking interests have thrown their influence in the direction of railway efficiency and the public advantage. If our judgment as to the desirability of the relationship of railways and credit inst.i.tutions is to be determined solely by results, we must conclude that the balance swings heavily in favor of the continuance of the present policy.

However, opposition to the close a.s.sociation of financial houses and railways has not sprung from any such favorable relationships as we have here described. It grows rather out of the concentration and monopolization of credit. A powerful banking house which has identified its interests with that of one railway system is in position, because of its direct influence on the railway and its close affiliation with all other sources of credit, seriously to hamper if not altogether to prevent the securing of credit by a rival interest. This power over credit is not confined to one city or to one section of the country, but it reaches every section and even extends beyond national boundaries into the foreign sources of investment funds. Local or small enterprises requiring only moderate underwriting are frequently financed independently, but it is an acknowledged fact testified to by the large bankers themselves that with rare exceptions issues of securities in large amounts, except when taken up by the stockholders, must receive at least the tacit approval of the big financial group. Partic.i.p.ation by the smaller banking houses in future underwritings depends upon loyalty to the syndicate in whatever enterprises are now being offered. The little fellows are inclined to respect a suggestion not to a.s.sist an enterprise of a character likely to interfere with undertakings already financed by the large interests. This informal but none the less effective network of alliances tends to destroy the compet.i.tive market for capital, and to restrict the railways to one source of credit. There does not appear to be any serious compet.i.tion among the large bankers, but rather an understanding in the nature of a division of the field. A railway obtains the services of a single banking house which acts as its fiscal agent, underwrites its securities, receives its deposits, and has a representative on the railway's board of directors. When the railway becomes involved in financial difficulties, the same banking house organizes protective committees, devises reorganization schemes, and creates voting trusts. As Mr. Brandeis has put it, it adds to its duty as midwife also that of undertaker.

Is this relationship potentially dangerous for the railways and the public? The late Mr. Morgan, in his illuminating testimony in the money trust investigation, took the position that the situation might be dangerous in the hands of the wrong men, but he clearly implied that there had been no bad results thus far and there were not likely to be in the future with a continuance of the present leadership. His argument reminds one of the young lady who "when she was good was very, very good, and when she was bad she was horrid." Yet this view is that of most of the financial leaders who appeared before the Pujo committee....

Mr. Davison and Mr. Schiff both opposed the policy of concentration through interlocking at the point where the representative of the two interests might wield a dominating influence, but they found it difficult to fix that point.

Mr. Baker, who took the position that safety lies in the personnel of the men, that in good hands interlocking could not do any harm, but in bad hands would be very bad, concluded nevertheless that the movement of concentration had gone about far enough. And Mr. George M. Reynolds, of Chicago, thus frankly expressed himself: "I am inclined to think that the concentration, having gone to the extent it has, does const.i.tute a menace." And again, "I think a more wide distribution of the power of credit ... would really be better in the long run." When asked the direct question, "Do you approve of the ident.i.ty of directors or interlocking directorates in potentially competing inst.i.tutions?" he replied, "Personally I do not believe that is the best policy."

It should be kept in mind that there is no evidence on record that this power has been used oppressively otherwise than in the rate of commission charged. Many of the bankers insist that the monopolization of credit is a physical impossibility.... There is, nevertheless, a concentration of credit in comparatively few hands.

If the conclusions thus far established are sound, it becomes clear that the real evil resulting from the interlocking of railways and credit houses, if any evil exists, arises primarily out of the relation of credit inst.i.tutions to each other, rather than out of their relation to the railways through representation on railway boards. Were this interlocking of railways and banks to be wholly prohibited without any alteration in the organization of the credit market, I am unable to see how the situation would be changed materially. The tendency on the part of the bankers would still be to follow the law of "banking ethics" and divide the field; a railway would still employ a single banking house as its fiscal agent, and this banking house would still exercise a powerful influence in determining the policy of the railway. At the same time the railway would be deprived of the presence on its board of a financial expert whose experience might be drawn upon in the detail of management day by day.

As Mr. Reynolds has admitted, the menace is in the concentration of credit. Such power may not thus far have been misused. But as the Pujo committee has said, "whenever the incentive is at hand, the machinery is ready." Those who have the public welfare at heart have no right to a.s.sume that such power will never be used to the personal interest of the bankers themselves and to the injury of the public. While I have no great enthusiasm for the popular pastime of rushing to Washington for a statute whenever the economic machinery fails to run smoothly, I am in sympathy with those who are studying the problem of the restoration of an open compet.i.tive market for capital.

However, this is a problem of extraordinary difficulty, and I do not myself see the way at present to its solution. I am aware that Congress has enacted legislation with the purpose of destroying this concentration of credit, and that many look upon the Clayton Act, so far as it touches our problem, as a distinct step in advance. Personally I am sceptical as to its efficacy in its present form. The opportunities for evasion are too numerous. However, it can be laid down as a general rule that all statutory enactment which really endures is a product of successive increments of legislation--the result of experimental tests and the knowledge that is gained by experience. It is no argument against the interlocking provisions of the Clayton Act that they do not solve the problem and that they can be evaded readily. Such an att.i.tude of timidity and pessimism a.s.sumed twenty-five years ago would never have given us our present air-tight Interstate Commerce Act. It may well be, however, that no relief can be found short of the radical step of employing government credit in aid of public-service industries. So vital is the necessity of the service to the people that the time may come when government loans to transportation corporations will appear to be a logical and natural step. But this is a digression.

Once this free market for capital is a.s.sured, the question again arises, Shall the railway board of directors contain banker members? Obviously the only purpose that the railway could then have in admitting bankers to its directorate would be the opportunity to utilize their experience in the direct management of the property. Quite as obviously the princ.i.p.al motive of the banker in accepting membership on a railway board would be to represent the underwriters and to act as fiscal agent.

But with the capital market compet.i.tive, I can find no serious objection to such relationship. Even under present conditions the banker in the majority of cases respects his trust, refuses to vote on questions involving his personal interest, and performs loyally his service to the railway; but his mere presence on the board as the embodiment of the railway's only source of credit may be sufficient to control the situation in his behoof. However, with a free credit market, the dominating position of the banker largely disappears and he becomes what he ought to be, an expert adviser on financial matters. It may be asked why, if the banker is now to confine his activities to what Mr. Loree has called the "necessarily intimate relation between the banker and the seeker for accommodation," this cannot be accomplished in the same manner as in unincorporated businesses without putting the banker on the directorate. In reply attention may be called to the fact that even in the case of unincorporated businesses, the credit departments of the large banks are virtually in the position of directors, so intimate and comprehensive is their influence and advice. But more than this the business of a railroad is so complex and extensive, its activities are so multifarious, that an intimacy with its affairs sufficient to make the banker's counsel of value would be impossible except by actual presence on the directorate.

Under these changed conditions of credit, I can see greater opportunity for the utilization of the service of expert bankers in railway management. Directorships which have been monopolized in the hands of a few banker specialists in railway securities should then be more widely distributed. It is quite impossible to believe that expert banking talent available for this service is as rare as the present situation would suggest, in which the abilities of a relatively few men are made to do duty in dozens of corporations. This absurd situation springs not from a scarcity of talent but from the narrow market for credit. A liberation of that market would bring latent ability from its hiding-places, and by the infusion of new blood would stimulate the management of our railway enterprises. It would open this field of activity to men "who have been obliged to serve when their abilities ent.i.tled them to direct."

FOOTNOTES:

[227] Adapted from the _Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Concentration of Control of Money and Credit_, 62d Congress, 3d Session, pp. 130-33.

[228] Adapted from Albert W. Atwood, _The Borrower and the Money Trust, Review of Reviews_, Vol. 46, August. 1912, pp. 207-218.

[229] [Interlocking directorates among the more important banks were prohibited by the Clayton Act, pa.s.sed in 1914. See p. 624.]

[230] Frank Haigh Dixon, _The Economic Significance of Interlocking Directorates in Railway Finance, The Journal of Political Economy_, Vol.

23, No. 2, February, 1915, pp. 938-946.

CHAPTER XXIX

CRISES

THE NATURE OF AN ECONOMIC CRISIS

[231]A definition of an economic "crisis" is, like most other definitions, very difficult to construct. By way of introduction we shall quote a few chosen somewhat at random. Adolph Wagner, the German economist, expresses his idea by saying: "Crises imply ... the overwhelming and simultaneous occurrence of inability on the part of independent _entrepreneurs_ to pay their debts." This is similar to the statement of John Stuart Mill: "There is said to be a commercial crisis when a great number of merchants and traders at once either have, or apprehend that they shall have, a difficulty in meeting their engagements." Professor E. D. Jones says: "A crisis is the sudden application of a critical conservatism to business transactions, leading to such a demand for liquidation as to cause a widespread inability among business men to meet their obligations." Senator Theodore E.

Burton states: "The word crisis, if employed with entire accuracy, describes a period of acute disturbance in the business world, the prevailing features of which are the breakdown of credit and prices and the destruction of confidence. It has especially to do with the relations of debtor and creditor."

None of these definitions gives so clear an idea as does a brief description. Probably no one has ever pictured the crisis and the a.s.sociated events more effectively than did Frederick Engels in his little volume, _Socialism: Utopian and Scientific_:

As a matter of fact, since 1825, when the first general crisis broke out, the whole industrial and commercial world, production and exchange among all civilized peoples and their more or less barbaric hangers-on, are thrown out of joint about once every ten years. Commerce is at a standstill, the markets are glutted, products acc.u.mulate, as mult.i.tudinous as they are unsaleable, hard cash disappears, credit vanishes, factories are closed, the ma.s.s of the workers are in want of the means of subsistence; bankruptcy follows upon bankruptcy, execution upon execution. The stagnation lasts for years; productive forces and products are wasted and destroyed wholesale, until the acc.u.mulated ma.s.s of commodities finally filter off, more or less depreciated in value, until production and exchange gradually begin to move again. Little by little the pace quickens. It becomes a trot. The industrial trot breaks into a canter, the canter in turn grows into the headlong gallop of a perfect steeplechase of industry, commercial credit, and speculation, which finally, after breakneck leaps, ends where it began--in the ditch of a crisis. And so over and over again.

Perhaps even this vivid word picture will be less impressive to some than a few facts as to the serious effects of the crisis and the depression that follows it. Professor Wesley C. Mitch.e.l.l in his recent volume ent.i.tled _Business Cycles_ has recorded the significant features of the crisis of 1907 in England and the United States and the following points have been taken from his account. By the middle of the summer evidences of difficulty had begun to appear in England. British railway stocks had fallen off in price; the shipbuilding yards had few new contracts; costs of production had become so great that many manufacturers were refusing to take new business at the ruling quotations; the building trades were dull; the ratio of net to gross railway receipts declined; commodity prices began to drop; bank clearings fell off; imports gained less rapidly; and the percentage of trade union members unemployed rose from 2.8 per cent. at the end of April to 3.6 per cent. by the close of August. These difficulties came to a climax in the latter half of the year, being intensified by the crash in the United States. The bank rate of the Bank of England rose from 4-1/2 to 7 per cent., where it remained for nearly two months.

During this period the market rate averaged from 5-1/2 to 6-1/2 per cent. Imports and exports showed smaller and smaller increases over the preceding year and in the early months of 1908 began to decline; clearings fell off sharply and trade union unemployment increased to nearly 10 per cent. during the latter months of 1908.

In the United States, where the crisis degenerated into a panic, conditions were much worse. In advance of the actual outbreak of the panic there was for months evidence of a tension in the investment market. Copper especially fell in price and was followed by copper stocks. This precipitated difficulty among a group of banks that were more or less closely identified with the copper interests. Runs were started and a number of banks were forced to suspend payments. A scramble for cash followed, spreading from New York throughout the United States and accompanied by very serious consequences. Among the worst of the effects were a premium on currency which rose at one time as high as 4 per cent.; the necessity of introducing numerous subst.i.tutes for cash; a demoralization of the domestic and foreign exchange markets that caused heavy losses both to bankers and to business men, while the amount and the prices of securities dealt in on the stock exchanges seriously declined. During November and December currency was at a premium of from 1/8 to 4 per cent. Call loan rates were erratic, going as high as 125 per cent. in the latter part of October and fluctuating between 5 and 25 per cent. as late as during the latter half of December. During November there was a decline in the amount of time loans and the quoted rates ranged from 6 to 7 per cent.

in October, 12 to 16 per cent. in November, and 8 to 12 per cent. in December. Worse still was the stoppage of business by those enterprises that could not pay the high rates and could make no special arrangements to secure lower ones. Business failures in the United States which had been as low as 161 in the last week of 1906, were 300 for the week ending December 19, 1907, and 435 for the week ending January 9, 1908.

In the second quarter of 1907 there were 2,471 and for the first quarter of 1908 there were 4,909.

These derangements of business would seem to be of interest primarily to the bankers and brokers or to the large borrowers--to the capitalist cla.s.s. The counterpart of the picture is to be found in the effect of the crisis upon the man of small means and upon the poor. Inability to borrow may mean considerable inconvenience or even financial ruin for the man of large affairs but it does not usually mean actual suffering.

Nevertheless his failure to secure funds and the necessity of selling his securities or commodities at a low price may force him to close his factory, to delay extensions, or at least to curtail operations. He receives fewer orders for goods and as a result buys smaller amounts of raw materials and lessens his own output.

This means reductions of wages and discharge of workmen. Some writers have urged that the workingman receives a fixed wage and does not a.s.sume industrial risks, which are borne by the capitalist or entrepreneur.

Such a statement is fallacious. The employee partic.i.p.ates in the risks of modern industry and suffers from a business derangement far more severely than his employer. The capitalist secures less profits but with his acc.u.mulated savings ordinarily endures no real privation, while large numbers of the workers with little or no savings face actual hunger or starvation. Demands upon charitable organizations increase, bread lines grow longer, and suffering becomes widespread and intense until the crisis and the ensuing depression are over....

THE CRISIS OF 1907 IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY

[232]... From one point of view ... every economic crisis is a financial crisis. For since values are expressed in terms of money, and since the modern business superstructure is erected on the basis of credit, every economic revulsion expresses itself through the medium of a change in prices; and since the bank is the center of credit operations, every crisis inevitably involves a revolution in the conditions of credit.

From this point of view, all crises may be declared to be financial crises.

From another standpoint, however, a distinction may be drawn between financial crises proper and commercial or industrial crises in the larger sense. There may be a financial panic or crisis due primarily to temporary and sudden oscillations in the condition of the money market or in the price of securities. Such oscillations, sharp and sudden though they be, may have but little relation, whether of effect or of cause, to the general commercial and industrial interests. Of this character, for instance, were the original Black Friday in England, in 1745, its namesake, the famous Black Friday in 1869 in New York, as well as many spasmodic fluctuations due either to political rumors like that which followed the Venezuelan Message of 1895, or to temporary speculative manipulations, like the Northern Pacific "squeeze" of 1901.

Of a distinctly different nature are those wider disturbances which are traceable to more general economic causes and which, even though they culminate in acute financial trouble, are followed by an industrial and commercial depression of more or less magnitude.

Into which category is to be put the crisis of 1907; and if in the latter, what were its causes?

At the outset it must be remembered that crises are essentially modern phenomena. We have had financial transactions, and that, too, on a large scale, for many centuries and in many civilizations. But crises, in contradistinction to temporary panics, have existed in England only since the middle of the eighteenth, and in other countries only since the beginning of the nineteenth, century. The first crisis in England, barring the financial flurry connected with the South Sea Scheme in 1720, was that of 1763, followed by the minor disturbances of 1772 and 1783, and the more widespread convulsions of 1793, 1810, and 1825. The first crisis in the United States was that of 1817; and it was not until 1837 that we find the first international crisis, spreading from the United States to England and then to France. In Germany the period of important crises was ushered in even later.

Crises, in other words, are products of modern economic life. Modern economic life, however, has as its basal characteristic industrial capitalism, with the factory system and the newer methods of production for a wide market. This transition to modern industrial capitalism began in England in the latter half of the eighteenth century, was initiated in America in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, and took place on the continent at a later date, last of all in Germany. The explanation of crises must therefore be sought in some feature of our modern capitalistic life.

The current explanations may be divided into two categories. Of these the first includes what might be termed the superficial theories. Thus it is commonly stated that the outbreak of a crisis is due to lack of confidence--as if the lack of confidence was not in itself the very thing which needs to be explained. Of still slighter value is the attempt to a.s.sociate a crisis with some particular governmental policy, or with some action of a country's executive. Such puerile interpretations have commonly been confined to countries like the United States, where the political pa.s.sions of a democracy have had the fullest sway. Thus the crisis of 1893 was ascribed by the Republicans to the impending Democratic tariff of 1894; and the crisis of 1907 has by some been termed the "Roosevelt panic," utterly oblivious of the fact that from the time of President Jackson, who was held responsible for the troubles of 1837, every successive crisis has had its presidential scapegoat, and has been followed by a political revulsion. The crisis of 1857 helped to weaken the Democrats; the crisis of 1873 resulted in a popular majority for Tilden; the crisis of 1884 put Cleveland into the presidential chair; and the crisis of 1893, with the ensuing depression, brought the Republicans back to power.

Opposed to these popular, but wholly unfounded, interpretations is the second cla.s.s of explanations, which seek to burrow beneath the surface and to discover the more occult and fundamental causes of the periodicity of crises. Here we find an interesting and progressive series of attempts to grapple with the difficulties of the problem. For a long time economists and business men advanced the theory of overproduction, forgetful of the fact that there really cannot be any such phenomenon as too much actual production of wealth.

With the disappearance of this doctrine there came into prominence its variant, which put the emphasis on relative, rather than absolute, or universal overproduction, that is, the overproduction of some things and the underproduction of others. This theory also failed to command general a.s.sent, for the reason that no one could show in what respects there was any underproduction of wealth, or any lack of particular products during the years preceding a crisis. Others again, have sought the causal fact in underconsumption, alleging that the larger consumption of wealth will in itself take up all the slack of production, and thus obviate a crisis. This explanation also is inadequate, because it overlooks the fact that the real falling off in consumption comes after the crisis has developed and not before; in fact, the period of prosperity which precedes a crisis is generally marked by a prodigious increase in consumption.

The socialists, again, seek to explain crises by the existence of private property in the means of production, and contend that if we were to cease the exploitation of the laborer by the modern capitalistic method, crises would disappear. While, however, agreeing in this general conclusion, they differ in their detailed a.n.a.lyses. Thus Rodbertus maintains that the secret of crises is to be found in the fact that the progress of industry causes a continually greater output of product, while the exclusion of the laboring cla.s.ses from any partic.i.p.ation in this increased productivity involves a relative diminution in demand, and thus ultimately a fall in price, culminating in a crisis. Marx, on the other hand, puts the emphasis on the fact that the necessary fall in the rate of profits (which, according to him, is a result of the surplus value, or exploitation theory) is incompatible with the greatly increased productivity of fixed capital inherent in the present system, and that the clashing of these two incongruous tendencies of modern industrial life brings about a relative overproduction of capital, and gives rise to periodical explosions. This view, finally, is sharply criticised by the latest and ablest of the socialist theorists, Tugan-Baranowsky, who in turn maintains that crises are due primarily to the fact that under the modern system it is impossible to invest the fresh acc.u.mulations of capital proportionally in all branches of industry, and that it is this relative disproportion of acc.u.mulated capital to the particular demand that causes the anarchy of the market and the recurrent convulsions of industry.

While the socialist scholars have undoubtedly made valuable contributions to the discussion of the problem, they, like the earlier economists, have erred in laying stress on the question of technical production rather than, as is done by the more recent economic thinkers, on that of business enterprise and capitalization. This is manifestly not the place to elaborate a general theory of crises. If we attempt, however, to give the bare outline of the modern explanation. It would be approximately as follows:

The problem of crises or industrial depressions is one of relative capitalization. Under the present system of enterprise, production is carried on in ma.s.s for a prospective market, rather than as formerly in small quant.i.ties to fill a definite order. Even if it be contended that certain factories nowadays are busy with producing to order, it is none the less true that numerous plants are continually being erected in the expectation that orders will be received in the future. The good times, or periods of rising prices, may be due to many causes--either in general to an augmented gold output, or in particular to the increase in the demand for some special product, whether in the iron industry through a new navy program, or in the clothing industry through the outbreak of a war, or in any other industry through a change of fashion or what not. Prices first rise in the particular enterprise, production augments, the movement spreads to other lines of business, and the new enterprises are financed by loans from the banks or trust companies, or by the sale of securities on a capitalization proportionate to the antic.i.p.ated earnings. In times of buoyancy we are continually capitalizing antic.i.p.ated earnings and future hopes, and we do this through the utilization of credit on a large scale. We build railways, put millions into steel plants, "boom" land sites, and form combinations of all kinds, employing the credit facilities granted by the banks, or throwing the securities on the stock market. We "water" the stock or, if that be forbidden by law, we drive the market quotations to a high point, because we think that this is warranted by prospective earnings.

Sometimes we say that we capitalize the good will or, in the case of quasi-public enterprises, the franchise; but in all cases we capitalize the future because we believe that we shall earn an income which will justify this capitalization.

The peculiarity, however, of an up-grade movement which rests on modern credit facilities is that we wear magnifying gla.s.ses or look at the future in too roseate a light. It is a natural tendency of human nature to capitalize one's hopes and expectations too liberally. If this is done on a continually larger scale, the capitalization becomes so great that actual earnings do not come up to our antic.i.p.ations or the fear of a discrepancy between actual and estimated earnings begins to obsess us.

It becomes necessary to reduce the capitalization to its true dimensions, _i. e._, to a sum proportioned to actual earnings. This process of readjustment of overcapitalized values obviously involves loss; but readjustment there must be. If the realization of its necessity is sudden, we have a crisis or panic.