The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

that may be set down as accidental. a . TRE MarINE REVIEW HOW BUFFALO VIEWS THE SITUATION Burrato, June 27.-There is disappointment in the lake trade and in some branches of it discouragement, for there is little in the outlook that is a promise of recovery later of what has not been earned so far. One need not say that there have been losses anywhere to give the proper impression of the present conditions. The state of mind to be sized up is based more or less on the recollections of the easy way money has so often been made on the lakes and on the con- viction that it is not to be done any more, os one owns vessels of the larger size. I am aware that predictions of this sort have often been proven less hopeful than they should be, for the fleet has al- ways, or at least. for the past 20 years, been considered 'too large for the good of rates and yet the profits have: come in much more generally than in most. other business, so that the great capitalists of. the country have been obliged to em- bark in the trade as at least one of the best things in sight. But they did not take up the lake trade till ship building had been completely rev rolutionized by the success of the steel hull, not entirely as a money maker, but as a permanent thing, subject to next to no loss from decay. The shutting out of this element in the reckoning is now to become a new factor 'in the trade and it will tell against the older fleet here as it can never do on the coast, for our trips are of too uniform length and our big ports too few to permit many classes of vessels to live side by side. - Of late nothing has revived here but the hard-coal trade and that has been practically turned over to the smaller fleet, as the shippers are doing all they can to push coal into the minor ports. It used to be hard fo get an adequate supply there, for the coal buyers disliked' to tie up their money in warm weather for something they had 'no market for: till winter, so they held off till fall and then all wanted coal at once. The result was that there was an end of the season with many of these ports short of coal, to be supplied by rail at great expense. The sliding scale of summer prices gave these buyers something to induce them to buy early and they are making the most of it. Already, with another week of June, Fort William has taken 54,000 tons, Racine 30,000 tons, Green Bay 25,000 tons, little Kenosha, 10,000 tons and DePere, that used to take next to none, 6,700 tons. This is an instance of knowing how to handle business to advantage. It offers the receiver and the buyer a premium - for doing what the seller is especially anxious to have, done and it means profit to both ends of the trade. In these days of close margins in so many things there is good business in such methods. So the shippers are just now neglecting the large ports for the small ones, as they know the ore car- 'riers are ready to pile them full of coal in a few days at the end of November if there is any fear of a shortage there. Considerable special preparation for such a condition of the trade is made here. The Lackawanna Co. is rebuilding and enlarging its mile-long storage and transfer trestle east of the city and the Lehigh Valley is building a new one that will hold 100,000 tons, all transferable at short notice. So the lake coal trade here is one thing, possibly the only thing, that is showing an improved condition pretty certain to last. While the railroads can move grain.and other freight well enough, they are not able to meet the requirements of coal much more than of ore, especially when great amounts are suddenly thrown on the carrier. There is all of the old ancertainty in the future of the grain and flour trade by lake and this season is decidedly discouraging. The amount to be carried would be small in either grain or flour, for grain is scarce and there is not export demand enough to move : much flour, but there is no certainty that the trade will spring up again when these drawbacks are removed. There is some falling off in ore receipts here of late, though The second Buffalo & - fraudulent . representation, interest from: June, 1904, which the late Mr. Long agreed to - -and the general public. | Susquehanna smelting furnace is still idle, waiting for a better condition of the iron trade, but it will be blown in as soon as there is a good market for the pig iron. The new ore dock on the opposite side of the canal will be ready for business as soon as possible. Visitors to Pittsburg during the last week express astonishment at the amount of ore and coal go- ing into the furnaces, but they have to add that ore as well as coal has to be brought to the blast by rail. Our furnaces are fed from the lake direct and the product goes on to the ocean by water. The business cannot help growing rapidly. JoHN CHAMBERLIN. CANADIAN SHIPPING NOTES The particulars in the action of the Northern Navigation Co. "against the estate of the late J. J. Long, at one time president of the. company, for $150,000 damage for alleged false and and alternatively for $83,000 and pay to settle the claim. .The particulars set out that J. J. 'Long as president was authorized to prepare a report and financial statement, by by-law, which he did, and on the strength "of his representations that it wasya'full and true statement it was adopted by the directors, and issued to the shareholders The statement showed that the profits for 1¢02 were over $80,000, whereas they were only $58,000, a fact Within the knowledge of J. J. Longe at the time he | prepared the statement. . Dividends had been paid prior to the report being made, and subsequent to its issue,-in all over $83.000 having been so paid. It is alleged that this false state- ment was made for the purpose of influencing the price of the stock of.the company, of which J. J. Long was a large holder, and.of enabling him to sell at an enhanced value, which he did. When the company's books were examined by special accountants in 1904, as the result of an agitation among the shareholders, after the sensational drop in the market value of the stock in the fall of 1903, the facts as alleged came to light, and negotiations between H. C. Hammond, the new pres- ident, and the ex-president, resulted in an agreement by which J. J. Long undertook the repay to the company the $83,000 paid in dividends during the period covered by the alleged false statement. Before the money could be paid the body of J. J. Long was found in the Don River, Voronto. The Dominion government has issued proclamations de- claring the ports of New Carlisle and Bonavenhere, Que., to be ports to which the act relating to harbor masters shall ap- ply, and appointing J. Chisholm to be harbor master at New Carlisle, and A. Bourque harbor master at Bonavenhere. The Union Steamship Co. has been incorporated under the Ontario Companiés' Act to carry on a general navigation business on the Great Lakes. The incorporators are: R. O. and A. B.. Mackay, W. G. Walton, W.-Southam, W. Magee, all of Hamilton, Ont. The capital of the company is $100,000 and the offices are at Hamilton, Ont. The Dominion Parliament is being asked to pass an act for the purpose of providing that the Harbor Commissioners shall cease to be the pilotage authority for Quebec, annexing the Saguenay river to the Quebec pilotage district, and declaring that the Minister of Marine shall be authorized to exercise all powers under the Pilotage Act, except in regard to the treating of pilots for breaches of regulations. The Great Lakes Steamship Co., owning the grain carrier Haddington, has placed an order in Great Britain for a full canal-sized steamer for fall delivery. The new steamer will be named the Royal. : The Turbine Steamship Co., although negotiating with British builders for another steamer, have not yet placed an order. It is not intended to order 'as large or as speedy a steamer as the Turbinia.