ITEMS OF INTEREST September 24, 1910 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

The National Association of Supervisors of State Banks held a three-days convention at Washington last week. They were addressed by the controller of the currency, Mr. Murray, who proposed to the state supervisors a working cooperation with the national bank examiners. During the last eighteen months, the controller said he had refused one hundred and eight applications to form national banks because the men behind them had been found incompetent or dishonest; that there was not enough business to make the proposed institutions profitable, or that the applicants were men without standing within the communities. Weak barks and failures almost always come from banks which should never have been chartered.

Approximately ninety million acres of land withdrawn from entry as being valuable for coal deposits or for classification, have been thrown open to agricultural surface entry under regulations approved by the acting secretary of the interior. The opening of these lands is accomplished under the act of June 22, 1910, one of the Administration conservation measures providing for the agricultural entry of the surface of public coal lands, the coal deposits being reserved for separate disposition by the United States. The agricultural title will pass from the United States, but all coal deposits will remain subject to exploration and purchase under appropriate coal laws.

The special commission created by the Massachusetts Legislature to appraise the property of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad has engaged Prof. George F. Swain to superintend the work. He will organize a force of experts and clerks and set it to work at once. This commission consists of the railroad commission, the tax commissioner, and the bank commissioner, Its work will be to examine the assets and liabilities of the company for the purpose of determining if the assets are sufficient to secure its outstanding capital stock and indebtedness, the expense of the investigation to be assessed upon the New Haven property.

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