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Show WELCOME CHECK ON BOOM DRIVE Speculators Were Riding For a Fall When Mid-Week Mid-Week Reaction Came. BY STUART P. WEST Special Correspondent Of the suvndard-Exiuniner. suvndard-Exiuniner. (Copyright, 1922, by the Standard-Examlnor.) Standard-Examlnor.) NEW YOBK, April 29. The past week has brought a partial Check upon speculative activities and to some extent also upon investment operations. opera-tions. It la true that the market lias readily absorbed new capital lasuee i unusual size. It snapped up Canadian government bonds on a five per cent basis, the most favorable terms which any foreign power has ever been able to got for Its public securities brought out here It took a New York City bond offering carrying a 4 1-2 per cent rate at the highest figure bid for similar Issues. At the same time lt oversubscribed company flotations reaching an uncommonly large total. But on the other hand the advance In bond pricee that Is. in investment bond prices, came to a halt, and lt began to look as though the great r part of tho list had got about all the stimulus pop-slble out of a 3 I-I per cont call monej market and a l 1-2 to 4 1-4 per cent rate on time loans and commercial discounts. ADVANCED TOO FAST Tho question before the stock market mar-ket has been whether or not tho rise In prices since tho middle of Januarj ovci -measured the progross of the, business situation outside. Wall street speculative .syndicates have had tliej advantage of the cheapest and most abundant credit in flee years. They have hud the powerful help of the investment in-vestment bulng movement, qulto un-paralleled un-paralleled for its magnitude and In-' tensity. Under the circumstances it has been easy to advance stock prices and tho tendency has been to push this I advance without being too particular I about asking whether it was fully warranted by the fa ts regarding corporate cor-porate earnings, present and prospective. prospec-tive. It was a good thing that this speculative specu-lative extravagance mtt with the rebuke re-buke lt did in tho sharp mid-week reaction. re-action. At the pace lt was going t fortnight ago the market was ruling for a fall. It was fancying Itejelfl back to the Inflated prices and inflated' profits of 1919. It was forgetting that the country's trade, while definitely on the mend, is not in for any boom and that moderate prices and moderate, profits are what all the Indications point toward. GENOA NOT DOMINANT Financial conditions have not been particularly sensitive to developments at tho Genoa conference When the British premier drew his fearsome picture pic-ture of what would happen should the gathering break up without results there was surprisingly little response in the markets. Perhaps the check! to the recovery In tho exchanges and to the advance In government bond prices might have boen set down In part to uncertainty on thLs account. Hut to the most important episode In this quarter the decline in French ax- li:irij,-' md slmultaneousl in French bonds has evidently been due not to anything happening at Genoa, but to! the multiplying signs that unless Qor-1 many, within the next month succeeds In floating a foreign loan, she will confess her inability to carry out tho reparations program when she makes her final answer on the 3 let of May, In assuming this attitude Germany, will have the support of ull who have' studied the question with any pretense' of fairness. The Wirth government! went to the limit when it pushed I through Its 1922 budget. Under this.! revenue from taxes w as doubled by I comparison with last year and a forced' loan of a billion gold marks brough the anticipated revenue up another 100 per cont. In a word tho Germany, budget calls for receipts 200 per cent In excess of 1921 and still falls far short of providing funds necessary to' moet tho reparations demands, it Isi estimated that to comply with the con-1 dltlons laid down by the commission.! tho German revenue, instead of being be-ing 200 per cent above Ijjst year, would have to be 320 por cent greater The' German claim, supported by impartial economists in the entente countries I I that this additional 120 per cent, will have to be raised by an outside! loan, that any further addition to tax burdens would discourage Industry and make the last state of economic situations situ-ations worse than the first. BRITAIN i 1 LOU i R tax Great Britain has got back to such I a surplus of receipts over expenditures! that she proposed to lower tin Income In-come tax. She has got this without the aid of any Indemnity money, and this is why the pound sterling baa not &rcd In the depression in the French j. I n&her continental currencies. The i g -r I 11 franc has come dow n with but not to tho extent that have been anticipated, considering consid-ering the stake that Belgium has In German reparations. She counts upon up-on this for three billion francs this year, or nearly half of what the budget bud-get calls for from all sources A deficit of over 1,100.000.000 francs would still remain even If every' mark of the indemnity were paid In. Under these circumstances a German default would put Belgium hack to the condition con-dition she was In other years when, to meet the huge budget deficiency, .she had tO borrow nt fancy rates In the foreign markets. |