Company News and Views

industry as is its climate generally, its climate is not always
favourable
But, fertile as is the soil of India, and propitious to agricultural
industry as is its climate generally, its climate is not always
favourable. It suffers periodically from excess of drought. As a
consequence artificial irrigation has to be resorted to, or much of
this fertile country would oftentimes be a desert. In British India
alone 28,000 miles of irrigation canals are under the control of the
government, 14,000 of which have been constructed by the present
(British) government–works of vast dimensions and the highest
engineering skill. Altogether 28,000,000 acres in British India are
dependent for their necessary supply of moisture upon general
irrigation, and 8,000,000 upon irrigation canals. Were it not for
these irrigation canals, 2,000,000 acres in Scinde (northwestern
India) would be a perpetual desert, for Scinde is almost wholly
rainless. On the other hand, in a great part of India the rainfall is
excessive. Some districts indeed are the wettest on the globe. In
Assam, for example (which is also one of the hottest places in India),
the rainfall is 600 inches yearly, and it has been 650. As a
consequence rivers in India often overflow their banks. Therefore to
protect the country on the lower river reaches from floods the British
government has built over 1500 miles of embankments.

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_A great many contracts are made by correspondence._ A person writes a
letter to another offering to sell him merchandise at a stated price.
The other replies saying that he will accept the offer. Is a contract
made at the time of writing his letter and putting it into the
post-office, or not until it is received by the person who made the
offer? The law in this country is that a contract is made between two
persons in that way as soon as the answer is written and put into the
post-office beyond the reach of the acceptor.

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great commercial nations of the world, it should now remain for us to
review these conditions in the United States
Having reviewed the industrial and trading conditions of the other
great commercial nations of the world, it should now remain for us to
review these conditions in the United States. But the United States is
so large a country, and its trading and industrial interests are so
diversified and extensive, that it would be impossible for us in the
limits of our space even barely to touch upon all these interests. So
that with respect to the ‘Trade Features of the United States’ we
shall simply confine ourselves to one part of the subject–namely, the
character, extent, and importance of our foreign trade. And we shall,
further, have to restrict ourselves in the main to our exports. These
will be found to be principally not manufactures, but the products of
our great agricultural, mining, and forest industries. The total value
of the manufactures of the United States amounts in round numbers to
the immense sum of $10,000,000,000 annually, a sum considerably more
than a third (it is thirty five per cent.) of the total value of the
annual manufactures of the world. But only a very small portion of
this vast output is exported. The greater portion of it is used to
sustain the still vaster internal trade of our country, a trade which
amounts to more than $15,500,000,000 annually, an amount not far short
of being one third of the total internal trade of the world, and not
far short of being twice the internal trade of Great Britain and
Ireland, the country whose internal trade comes next to ours. Our
exports, therefore, are not in the main manufactured goods, but
breadstuffs, provisions, and raw materials, the production of our
farms, our plantations, our forests, and our mines. But principally
they are the products of our farms and our plantations, for with the
exception of cotton we do not export much raw material. Nearly all the
raw material we produce (other than cotton) we use in our own
manufactures. And even this is not enough, for in addition we have to
import considerable quantities of raw material for our manufactures
from other countries, the principal items being raw sugar, raw silk,
raw wool, chemicals of various kinds including dye-stuffs, hides and
skins, lumber, tin, nickel, and paper stock.

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Very many persons act as agents for others. Much of the business of
modern times is carried on by persons of this class. All the managers
of corporations are agents of the railways, banks, manufacturing
companies, and the like. They are to be seen everywhere. Every
salesman is an agent. In short, _the larger part of the modern
commerce of the world is done by agents_.

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than your own, or in buying real estate or stocks or bonds you may
find it necessary to get your cheque certified
If you wish to use your cheque to pay a note due at some other bank
than your own, or in buying real estate or stocks or bonds you may
find it necessary to get your cheque certified. This is done by an
officer of the bank, who writes or stamps across the face of the
cheque the words ‘Certified’ or ‘Good when properly indorsed’ and
signs his name. (See illustration, p. 244.) The amount will
immediately be deducted from your account, and the bank by
guaranteeing your cheque becomes responsible for its payment. If you
should get a cheque certified and then not use it deposit it in your
bank, otherwise your account will be short the amount for which it is
drawn.

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when a person sends an offer to another by mail the post-office is
regarded a little differently
The post-office usually is the agent of the person who uses it, but
when a person sends an offer to another by mail the post-office is
regarded a little differently. It is the agent of the person who sends
the offer and also his agent in bringing back the reply. Consequently,
when this is put into the hands of the agent the law regards the
offerer as bound by his offer. In like manner, if a creditor should
send a letter to his debtor asking him to send a cheque for his debt
and he should comply, the post-office would be the agent of the
creditor in carrying that cheque, because he requested his debtor to
use this means in sending his cheque to him. But when a request is not
made and a debtor sends a cheque on his own account, the post-office
is his agent for carrying it to his creditor.

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one else the tenant has a right to do this, but remains bound to the
landlord for his rent
When nothing is said about underletting the whole or a part to some
one else the tenant has a right to do this, but remains bound to the
landlord for his rent. Generally when written leases are made there is
a clause stating that the tenant cannot underlet any portion or all
without the landlord”s consent.

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7. Every bank in certain designated cities, called reserve cities,
must keep a reserve of lawful money equal to twenty five per
cent. of its deposits. All other banks must keep a like reserve
of fifteen per cent., but three fifths of the said fifteen per
cent. may consist of balances on deposit in banks approved by the
comptroller in the reserve cities.

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strictly adhered to under the existing conditions of active competition
obtaining in the United States
Whatever theory of rates may be accepted as ideally best, it cannot be
strictly adhered to under the existing conditions of active competition
obtaining in the United States. Actual charges have to be fixed and
revised to meet the varying circumstances under which railway traffic is
conducted. This competition takes several distinct forms. One is that
between railways and waterways. A large part of the domestic traffic of
the United States has the choice of transportation by rail or by water
on the great lakes and the tributary canals, by the navigable rivers, or
by one of the many ocean routes followed by our coastwise commerce.
There is also the competition of rival railways connecting common
termini or serving the same cities. These forms of competition are the
ones most frequently noted; but they perhaps exercise a less potent
influence over rates than what is known as competition through the
markets or through the channels of trade. The competition between rival
centres of commerce and industry–between the Atlantic cities and the
gulf ports, for instance, or between the manufactures of New York and
Philadelphia and those of Chicago or Cincinnati for the markets of the
Southern States, to cite another example–is a force that must be
considered in making rates and fares. Even towns served by only one
railway and by no waterway enjoy the benefits of this industrial
competition. Unless the railroad can give the industries in these
local towns rates that will enable them to market their products,
the industries will decline and the railway will lose its traffic.

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