much to facilitate the prompt delivery of telegrams and cables, so that quotations and other information concerning both foreign and domestic markets may be placed before our members as early as possible. In addition, your committee has also bestowed special attention to quotations of grain and provisions in foreign markets, and to the movement of grain and the condition of crops from the principal wheat growing countries, notably South America, Australia and India. In cases where there was the slightest ambiguity in messages, the committee has withheld posting such messages until they should be made clear, and has impressed upon our foreign correspondents the necessity of promptness and reliability regarding messages sent to this board. Your committee trusts that its labors have resulted in improving the service concerning the transmission of market intelligence to members of this association. Your Committee on Flour Inspection has not frequently been called upon, as few controversies have arisen between buyer and seller, and the duties of our Chief Inspector of Flour have been satisfactorily performed. Your Committee on Provision Inspection has carefully investigated the various applications made for warehouses to be declared regular for the storage of provisions. It has found that the warehouses declared regular warehouses under the rules of the board for the storage of provisions fulfill in all respects the requirements of the Board of Directors for provision warehouses. To this committee have been referred all cases of disagreement between the buyer and the seller of provisions, and its good offices have been so effective that no case with reference to inspection of provisions has been presented for adjustment before any tribunals of this board. Your Clearing House Committee derives great satisfaction in presenting to the board the annual statement of the Chicago Board of Trade Clearing House for the year. This statement shows that the business of the members of the board has been larger and more profitable than during the year preceding. This is especially gratifying in view of the fact that the clearances of 1895 were very considerably in excess of those for the year 1894. The amount of clearances, as elsewhere stated in the report, was $81,814,059.63, and total profits derived from the clearing house during the year was $6,190.90. The duties which devolved upon your Committee on Rooms have perhaps been more frequent than those which have devolved upon any other of the standing committees of the board. These delicate duties have been discharged with good judgment, so that while every courtesy has been extended to visitors, the privileges of the Exchange Room have been discreetly dispensed. The members of the committee highly appreciate the co-operation of their fellow members in the discharge of their duties. Your Committee on Finance held its meetings regularly to inspect and certify to the correctness of the bills of the board and to pass upon all expenditures. The accounts of the association have been duly presented and its expenditures properly vouched for, and verified by an expert accountant. Respectfully submitted on behalf of the Board of Directors. WM. T. BAKER, President. REPORT OF THE TREASURER. To the President and Directors of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago: GENTLEMEN :-As Treasurer of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, from the 7th of January, 1896, I beg to report that I had on hand January 7, 1896..... I have received in sundry deposits from the Secretary of the .8 35,716 44 243,409 44 I have paid 852 checks drawn by the Secretary, and duly countersigned, amounting to...... Leaving a balance on hand at this date of........... Respectfully submitted, January 5, 1897. $ 279,125 88 .$ 265,214 93 $ 13,910 95 ERNEST A. HAMILL, Treasurer. INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF WM. T. BAKER, PRESIDENT. Fellow members of the Board of Trade: In accepting the office to which you have a fifth time elected me, I acknowledge the obligation due you for the unusual honor, and shall endeavor to show my appreciation of it by such fidelity and care for the interests of this Board as my limitations will permit. I congratulate the members of this board on a fairly prosperous business during the past year, and on the prospect of still better times to come. The year has been marked by most alarming vicissitudes in all branches of business in this country, and I therefore felicitate you that failures have been almost unknown among us, and that you have closed the year generally with a balance on the right side of the ledger. I sincerely hope the improvement in business here is the harbinger of prosperity for the whole country, for we can hardly expect permanent improvement in which all branches of industry do not share. We are therefore justified in exerting our influence whenever we can do so in the direction of improving present conditions, and especially for such congressional enactments as will relieve us from the peril that has already nearly wrecked the country. Politics and business have become so closely allied that we can scarcely discuss business concerns of the first importance to every one without inviting the imputation of partisanship. The tendency of our time forbids the hope of such an Utopian condition that merely academic discussion of National questions will be possible. The people have so long been taught that the principal function of government is to do something for everybody, that every citizen looks to Washington with hope and fear, and it is only by frank expressions of business men that vital errors may be avoided. We owe it to ourselves, therefore, and to the business community of which we are a part, to give vigorous expression of our views on business questions on which legislation by Congress is likely or desirable. There is no place where such questions can be discussed more dispassionately than in this Board of Trade, for no member of it is or expects to be a beneficiary of any Act of Congress LXXXIV further than any citizen is benefited by honest legislation for the public good. The currency question is as far from being settled as it has been at any time since the repeal of the Sherman Act. All the machinery for precipitating the country to a silver basis is in perfect order, and ready to operate whenever anything occurs to arouse suspicion or start alarm. It is criminal folly for busi. ness men to lapse into indifference again until the treasury surplus approaches the danger line. It is positively monstrous that the whole business fabric of this country and the honor and credit of the government should be permitted to continue at the mercy of circumstances that may arise at any time, and are as sure to arise some time in the future as they have already in the recent past. The last election barely extinguished the burning fuse that led to the mine, but the mine is still there, and the danger, though less imminent, is just as great as it has always been since our currency laws were enacted. It is the paramount duty of Congress to revise these laws, to take the government out of the banking business by retiring all its demand notes and substituting National bank notes redeemable in gold. Practically the only issue in the last campaign was the money issue. Familiar questions of political economy were either ignored or perfunctorily discussed as evidence of party consistency, but the appeal to the intelligent electorate was for honest money, and more than two millions of voters laid aside their most cherished convictions in voting with the majority to save the National honor. I believe they now have a right to demand that those with whom they voted shall be equally patriotic, and put all other party questions behind them until the currency question, on which they were agreed, is settled and settled forever. The people can afford to wait for increased taxation, but they can not afford to wait for that return of confidence which a proper reform of our currency laws will bring about, and which nothing else in the way of legislation will accomplish. The question between the board and the elevator proprietors has reached a decision in the Circuit Court in our favor on every controverted point. The decision of Judge Tuley is so comprehensive and convincing that the elevator proprietors can hardly hope to have it reversed by the Supreme Court, though they have taken an appeal. I earnestly recommend that no backward step be taken by this board. There has been nothing in the events of the past year to make the elevator monopoly more endurable. |