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- MARINE REVIEW. Vow. 111, CLEVELAND, OHIO, THURSDAY, JUNE 18, 1891. No. 25. A Strange Case of Stupidity. A fair example of the manner in which the shipping busi- ness of the lakes is considered by officials high in authority in Washington has just been furnished in the order sent to Gen. Poe from the war department early in the week, calling for a suspension of business for three days in the St.Mary’s Falls canal. When the circumstances are considered, a more stupid thing can hardly be imagined. Gen. Casey, chief of engineers, has on several occasions acted in a manner unfavorable to water trans- portation interests, but he certainly had nothing to do with this blunder. The newspaper dispatches do not say whether he was consulted or not, but no one will think fora moment that he was consulted. Acting Secretary Grant who has been trying for several weeks past to shirk the responsibility of a movement towards having the war department take charge of the Chicago river, and who has worried the vesselmen in that matter also, is the shining light in this canal closing order. A suit is pending against the United States in which dama- would be better to let the lawsuit wait a few months than to blockade hundreds of boats for days while the legal gentlemen were holding their inquest upon the valves. The order was countermanded. The examination of the valves has been post- poned till a more convenient season, or, to be more specific, to the first week in December.” The amount involved in the litigation is only $500,000 but it did not occur to the acting secretary that the loss to lake inter- ests in the three days of idleness would be far above that figure. It is such blundering as this in and out of the departments that tires vessel owners of a continual meddling and grind of laws concerning their business. E The Iron Ore Market. In accordance with a feeling of improvement generallyin _ the ore market the demand for stocks is more active and there is some talk of dividends that is decidedly encouraging, although prices of these securities are still very low. The Iron Cliffs Com- THE: TATE “CAPT. W.-B. MORLEY. ges are claimed for an alleged infringement upon a patent in con- nection with the valves which regulate the flow of water into and out of the lock. In the office of the attorney general it was thought that a good plan would be to examine the valves, the result to be used as evidence. It is not strange that the legal gentlemen were not acquainted with the location of the valves below the canal lock, or the loss that would result from a sus- pension of business at this time in the most important canal in the world, so they laid the matter before the acting secretary of war and asked that an order be issued to have the lock closed for the purpose set forth. One of the newspaper dispatches tells the result: ‘The acting secretary agreed that it would be a good and proper thing to do. In the kindness of his heart he prompt- ly fired off the order. He knows little of the importance of that great waterway and the prodigious loss and damage to the lake commerce that would be caused by closing it for three days at this time of year. After the order had gone out Gen. Casey, chief of engineers, went to the acting secretary and laid the facts before him. ‘Then the temporary head of the war department, like Saul of Tarsus, ‘saw a great light.’ He concluded that it pany has declared a dividend of $8 a share, payable on the 18th inst. This is notaCleveland-Cliffs dividend, butis to be paid from earnings of the Iron Cliffs Company accumulated previous to the consolidation, just as the Cleveland company paid $1 a share a few days ago. Dividends from Chandler, Lake Angeline, Re- public and Lake Superior are also talked of, but there is noth- ing official regarding them. These old companies will, of course, make money on this year’s sale as they have in the past, and in many cases the prices at which it is said ore has been sold are altogether too low. Chandler, for instance, is said to have sold ore at $4.25. Although prices are not given out it is more than probable that the lowest figure on Chandler ore was $4.50 and that figure was made on a lot of 200,000 tons to the Illinois Steel Company ‘The Chandler company made $380,000 last year and has sold all ot its ore for this season. At the time of its annual meeting this season’s product had not been sold, and this was given as one reason for the non-payment of a dividend, so that it would seem now that a sharing of profits ought to be near at hand. ‘The company was carrying a large line of paper at the aunual meeting time but it was of a gilt-edge kind.