A SUNKEN TREASURE SHIP.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 3 May 1901, Page 3

A SUNKEN TREASURE SHIP.

The days of treasure-hunting are not yet over. On 7th. October, 1799, H.jVT.S. Lutid, thirty-two guns, went down off tho Dutch coast, with all hands but two, and nobody knows how much treasure on board. She is still there under the sand, and tho bulk of her treasure, they say, is still with her.

For a hundred years men have been digging at her, and they are digging still. When the calm weather comes again a brand new syndicate will stake fresh thousands in the hope of getting them back ten or a hundredfold. The bulk of the treasure was destined to relieve a commercial piaeh at Hamburg. There is evidence to show that L'oyd’s and a Hamburg house together issued insurances for more than a million sterling. Little more than £IOO,OOO is known to have ever been recovered. This amount was made up of eighty-five bars of gold, ninety-seven bars of silver, and much coin. Enthusiasts have visions of 245 more bars of gold and seventy.nine bars of silver

The way it is d.inc is to pile a wall o sandbags in circle at the bottom of th sea where the treasure ought to be, and suck away the sand by means of powerful suction dredges. The coins come up with the sand and are caught in sieves, the sand is run back into the sea outside the sandbag wall, which prevents It from silting back over the uncoveren weeck.

The following are the inward passengers by the Wainui to-day:—Misses Stratford, Harkness, Keefe, Monteith, Montgomery, Boase ; Mesdames Kelly, Campbell, Dafforn, Storm, Duncan, Farnslow, Cooper, Roberts, Kilgdur; Messrs. Senigh, Kelly, Burnes, Davis, Nutimer, Scalmer, Dick, Mollier, Barcley, Scott, Johnstone, Moran, Lames, Ryan, Monday, Farnslow, Robertson, Cooper, Taylor, Thompson, Hawley, and Corrick Family. A “stowaway’’ (a New Zealander) made the passage from Hong Kong to Westport by the Penarth. We understand that under Section 39 of the Municipal Corporations Act it will be the duty of the New Borough Council to fix the amount of the Mayoral salary The salary must not exceed £4OO a year

THE RELIGION OF TRUSTS. Some day in tho not very far-off future the greatest struggle that the world has ever seen will take place in the United States—the struggle will be one between the Proletariat and Plu-

tocracy, compared with which the • French Revolution of 1791, and the outbreak of the Communes, will sink into insignificance. The cause will be the uprising against the mighty power wielded by the Trusts—or, in other words, the banded monopolists who at the present day exert such tremendous power in America. Far-seeing Americans have already taken alarm, and the successive Presidents for years have expressed fears as to the power of those combinations, and the necessity of a curb being put on their pernicious influence. Already it may bo said the trusts rule and grind America, influence its commerce, and control its industrial welfare to a degree that is unwholesome and dangerous to tho welfare of the government of the States. President Harrison, in his message to Congress in 1889, declared that trusts were “ dangerous conspiracies against the public good, and should be made the subjects of prohibitory and even penal legislation.” President Cleveland, in his Congress message in 189 G, denounced Trusts, maintaining that the laws passed for mitigating the evils of trust combinations had proved ineffective, and recommending separate state legislation ' in relief of the evils.

President M'Kinley in his message as late as last December has no high opinion of separate State legislation as a remedy and favors a uniformity of repressive enactments and says that “combinations which control the market of any commodity and suppress natural competition are obnoxious not only to the common law, but also to the public welfare.” Yet in spite of these protests and of the action of the committee appointed to deal with the matter and which recommends that Congress should have full control over all trusts combinations, compelling them to register full accounts of all their proceedings, it is feared that the power of the trusts is such that it will kill all legislation on the subject. Mr. James Burnley, who is recognised as one of the greatest authorities on the subject of the American Trusts in a powerful paper entitled “ The Trail of the Trust,” and to whom we are indebted for the major part of the information contained in this article, sa y S The trail of the trust is oyer everything American, its deepening shadow falls on every branch of the country’s industry and crosses every avenue of the national life.” We in New Zealand sometimes speak about moneyed men and the power of money, but we can hardly have any conception of the power and wealth of the moneyed classes in America and of the capitalised value of the various trusts. There are altogether some GOO or more of these undertakings in the United States representing a total in common and preferred stock the tremendous sura of £1,950,000,000. Such a sum is scarcely conceivable, one thousand nine hundred and fifty millions sterling. Is it to be wondered at that this mighty combination is a cause for fear and trembling. Mr. Burnley gives a few instances of the capital of some of these trusts, which we quote : —• Booth Company (fish and oysters) ... ... 1,000,000 United States Biscuit Company ... ... ... 11,000.000 Cigar Trust 4,000,000 Diamond Match Coy ... 2,500,009 U.S Fruit Coy 4,000,000 Preserving Combine ... 2,000,000 American Fiour Company £30,000,000 Farm and Dairy Produce Co. 3,000,000 Ice Trust ... ... ... 3,000,000 Spirit (Distillery) Trust ... 36,000,000 Sugar .Refinery 25,000,000 National Carpet ... ... 10,000,000 Furniture Manufacturers ... 2,000,000 National Wall Paper ... 7,000,000 Mirror Manufacturers ... 1,000,000 Window Glass Combine ... 6,000,000 Bicycle Trust ... ... 6,000,000 Candy Manufactures Trust 15,000,000 Auto Truck Combine ... 40,000,000 Orange Growers’ Trust ... 4,000,000 Paper Bag Co 5,000,000 Theatrical Trust 6,000,000 Catnogi Company (steel and iron) ... ... ... 50,000,000 Standard Oil Company ... 22,000.000 Besides others of a like nature. These Trusts swallow up every other business of a cognate character. In fact it is a matter of sheer impossibility for a smali firm to oppose them. As instancing the effect they have had, it may be mentioned that the furniture manufactures swallowed up 50 separate firms ; the Wall Paper Company, 40 firms; the Jewellery Manufactures Trust, 500 firms; the Mirror Manufacturers, 40 firms ; the Bicycle Trust, 100 plants, or 76 per cent of all in the country; the Theatrical Trust controls all the largest establishments in in America, and so on throughout the list. It is pitiable to conside r what the advent of a straggling man would be against these “ combines.” From these trusts have sprung that new race of beings, the multi millionaires of America. We do not allude to the old class such as the Astors, Vanderbilts, Maokays, Stanfords, and others of that class, but to those who are more intimately connected with the “ Trusts,” such as the Rockafe.lers, who owe their wealth to the Standard Oil (Kerosene) Company. John D. Eochefeller is worth at tho present time £50,000,000, and his income for the present year is estimated at £15,000,000. His brother, W. D. Eochefeller, is worth £20,000,000; J. H. Flagler, £10,000,000; H. M. Flagler, £7,000,000; and J. D. Archbold, £7,000,000. These five Standard Oil men are worth between them nearly £100,000,000, and so on through the chapter. It might be mentioned that nearly the whole of . combinations are paying good ...... -dividends.

We now come to the power they wield and one case in point may be mentioned. It is certainly an unscrupulous one and is of such a nature as would tend to bring about the crisis we have alluded to. A little while ago the President of a great iron and steel trust in Chicago, without a word of previous warning closed down twelve of the big mills of the concern, threw snx thousand men out of work, and caused a rapid slump on the company for no other purpose it wus asserted

than to juggle a tremendous profit for himself. There existed no sufficient business reason for his action, as the President so manipulated his shares that the result was that he made over a million in hard cash by the transaction and the mills reopened in a week. This may be sharp business, but it is sbarcely honest, not taking into account the misery occasioned socially. It may be said that the action of these large companies would tend to lower the cost to consumer, but has it done so ? Although there is no dimunition in the flow of tho petroleum wells the Standard Oil Company has advanced the price of kerosene from 7 dol. 50 cents to 9 dol. 90 cent, the linseed oil trust from 41 cents to 50 cents, the leather trust from 20 cents to 2oh cents, tne copper trust from 13i cents to IGI- cents, the lead trust from 8 dol 95 cents to 4 dol 60 cents, the tin plate trust from 8 dol to 5 dol 25 cents per box. When it is found that opposition is killed, up goes the price and down goes the wages. What chance is there for tho wageearner, It is almost an impossibility for him to rise or to fight against those mighty combinations and the result is and will-be a continual state of oppression," till a reaction takes place. “ The wheels of grind slowly but they grind surely ” and when tho day of reckoning comes it will be a.bitter one. Let us hope that New Zealand may never reach in respect to its trade organisations such a height as America has attained. So far as we can remember the cases of combine in New Zealand are at present but few —however this colony is at present only a new one. The Union s.s. Company might almost be considered a trust inasmuch as it is a monopoly so far as New Zealand is concerned, and it controls the shipping business. The Anchor Line, it is affirmed, is under bonds of agreement, so is the Blackball Company, and I have no doubt the companies are interested, and it also exercises a powerful influence in the Westport Coal Company. Again it is only a day or two since that we were informed through your columns that a combine ” had been entered into between the New Zealand Shipping Company, The Tyser Company, and another Steamship Company with re ; gard to tho regulation of freights on forage, etc. Surely this is the thin end of the wedge, and if it succeeds what is to prevent a great “ combine ” in other directions. But perhaps the greatest instance of a close “ combine ” is that afforded by the New Zealand Press Association. Fostered and started by the Liberal Government of Str George Grey it killed the Press Agency then in existence, and is now one of "the closest of monopolies —indeed it is almost prohibitive for a newspaper starting in New Zealand without paying an exhorbitant sum to gain admittance into the charmed circle, as was found out some few years since by two Greymouth boys, Messrs W. Arnett and Cushion when endeavouring to start a newspaper at Hastings in the North Island. Instead of lending a helping hand, every obstacle was thrown in the way, so far as obtaining telegraphic news, without which a newspaper cannot exist. Surely the Government should take means, before it is too late to prevent the growth, and break up these monopolies. It maybe said these monopolies and combines exist all over the world. In Africa the Do Beers Diamond Combine, the Rand goldmines, and the Transvaal Dynamite monopoly were to some extent the causes of the present war, and if, as it is so, should not every means be used to prevent their spread. The outlook is not a pleasant one—there nothing optimistic about it. The main object of these great trusts is to lessen the cost of production —not for the benefit of general good, but for the sake of themselves. Employment owing to the spread of labor-saving machines, is becoming scarcer, population is increasing, cheap labor whether Kafir, Chinese, women, boys or girls is preferred to the white male, and what must be the result. As before urged the iron-hand may be pressed to hard, and who can foretell the result. Trade unionism has been sneered at, and derided, but in reality it is the only thing left for the workman, but in this matter they are not true to themselves. Capital is always true to capital, but labor never. It will be a sorry day for the social world in the States when the laborer throws up the sponge and prepares for the inevitable. It was the grindery and the oppression induced by the nobles, the Court, and the vices and luxuriousness that caused the French Revolution of 1791, raay not the same influences work else--1 where. A “ floated aristocrat ” may be bad enough, but a “ bloated democrat” is far worse. As Rudyard Kipling says we must take care “lest we forget ” the lesson that history ought to have taught us.