The Business Future

In the business outlook for the ensuing year there is much for encouragement. Bed rock has been reached, and for this reason, if for no other, the future must be one of progress. The disturbing factors responsible for the panic have been removed. The addition of several millions each month to the gold obHgations of the treasury department was stopped by the repeal of the Sherman law. The fundamental ■distrust of the abilityof the treasury to maintain gold paynients has been more than temporarily allayed. The foresight displayed by the President in making his much abused bargain with the loan syndicate has not only settled that matter upon a practical basis, but has settled it in a manner satisfactory to the investing classes, without whose sanction no return of confidence would be possible. Neither are possible changes in the tariff any longer a factor in deterring commercial engagements. It will be some years before the fortunes of politics can reopen the question. By that time the economie conditions imposed by the Wilson bill will have been fairly tried, their influence upon the country will no longer be a matter of possible speculation, and future changes will conform to the results of this trial. The element of uncertainty is eliminated. As a rule commercial crises furnish of themselves the means for recuperation. The basis of private credit is stronger than before the panic. Those who were following iinsafe methods have fallen. The weak and unstable have been weeded out. Only those who were sound when the storm came remain, and this fact of itself tends to establish confidence in future operations. The transactions of business institutions and the spending of private incomes must be adjusted to the new conditions. Once that adjustjment is etïected the volume of business must have a healthy increase. Again the consuniption of the past two years, while much below that under normal conditions, has not been supplied by current production. The usual surplus has been exhausted and this tact alone presages industrial activity, a more general employment of labor and an improvement in all lines of business. The country has reached a point where it must begin producing or quit consuming altogether. We have a restored and strengthened confidence in both public and private credit, we have almost unlimited funds seeking employment and we will have a more than normal demand for the productions oi milis and factories. (Jnder these favorable conditions nothing but unforseen calamities can prevent an early return of prosperity. There is a screw loóse in a system which permits such jugglery as characterized the recent changes in the city charter, without the knowledge of any citizen outside of the ring. Here is a change made in a matter which concerns the people of Ann Arbor alone, involving extra taxation and the expenditure of large sums ot money, by a body in which only one citizen of Ann Arbor has a Vote, without consulting the wishes or the convenience of those people in the matter. No one cares to father the act. No one cares to justify it. No necessity exists for the seventh ward, except the doubtful one of keeping the city council republican. The chickens will come home to roost. The new seventh should be called the shoestring ward. The inhabitod portion of the ward is two blocks wide by sixteen blocks long. It is beautifully calculated to lace the surplus majorities of the First and Sixth together, and string two new aldermen for the g. o. p. Public expense don't count when the interest of the ring is in question.