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Show The Business Situation. IN these days of rapid travel and transmission of news every part of j the civilized world is affected by disturbances in the great financial centers London and New York. A financial crash in either of those places ! would immediately affect business of j all kinds in Utah and the surround-i surround-i ing states, although most of those I whose business was affected would not I know the ' cause. This was well illustrated il-lustrated in the panic of .lS93. The i banker tells the local merchant he must pay his overdraft, and cannot borrow any more money for a time. The banker sefs a storm coming and must call in his money, arid the result is a local stringency and hard times. The financial conditions in New York and London at the present time are critical. The cause is the same old trouble the trusts, those gigantic monopolies mo-nopolies whose assets consist of one part value to nine parts hot air, and whose stocks have been selling at' ten times their actual value. The trusts are at present worried over impending legislation by congress, which might have the effect of depriving them of their monopoly in production and prices, and thus leave the field open to competitors. Such legislation, properly enforced, would send the. stocks of the trust tumbling down with a crash, for they would bring only what they were actually, worth. The United States Steel -trust has been making the most frantic efforts for the past year to keep the price of its stock up and to sell fore of it. The last move by this combination shows the adroitness and skill of its . managers. Under the specious pretense of "sharing profits with employes," they allow their employes em-ployes to subscribe for about $24,000,000 worth of stock in small lots, the price payable in installments. This has been eagerly taken up by the employes, who are induced thereto by the expectation expecta-tion of finding favor with the managers, man-agers, and sharing in the . dividends. The trust has employed 236.CC0 men, who by this process become strong supporters sup-porters of the monopoly, because they receive less than one-fortieth of the dividends earned. This one-fortieth could easily be made up later by a reduction in wages, and, of course, the dividends of the wage earners being involved, they would not be likely to I strike. The jackal would naturally be I expected to have the lion's meal ready, without murmuring. Amongst other trusts which will doubtless receive attention are the coal and beef trusts. These are the most iniquitous of any, as they directly affect af-fect the lives of the people, and especially es-pecially of the poorer classes in the crowded cities. Coal is $20 per ton in Chicago, and Instances are daily recorded of families dying from cold. The price of meat has been raised so enormously high that poorer people cannot afford to buy it at all, and the result is many deaths from want and actual starvation. It Is no wonder that the stocks in. these trust corporations cor-porations are dangerously near the breaking point. at this time. There are enough honest men in Congress to heed the mighty popular demand for regulation regu-lation of the trusts and It is confidently confi-dently expected thaf some measures will pass at the present session which will clip the claws of the trust monsters, mon-sters, who stand between the people and the enjoyment of the necessaries of life which nature has furnished in such abundance in this country. |