1930 - Commerce

Commerce

The Bank for International Settlements is established at Basel, Switzerland, to manage German reparation payments for the Great War and facilitate cooperation among central banks of various countries.

Congress votes a $230 million Public Buildings Act March 31 and a $300 million appropriation for state road-building projects April 4 to create jobs.

The Diamond Corp. is established at Johannesburg by South African industrialist Sir Ernest Oppenheimer through a merger of his 10-year-old Consolidated Diamond Mines of South Africa and De Beers.

Some 35,000 Japanese textile workers strike the Kanebo factory in April; most are women. Tokyo Muslin has a strike of 1,500 women workers in June to protest layoffs and factory closings as economic depression deepens throughout most of the world; the women remain in their dormitory and refuse to leave.

France enacts a workmen's insurance law April 30.

Labor leader Leonora M. K. "Mother Lake" Barry dies at Minooka, Ill., July 15 at age 80; Mary Harris "Mother" Jones at Silver Spring, Md., November 30 at age 100.

Wall Street prices break again in May and June after an early spring rally that has seen leading stocks regain between one-third and one-half of last year's losses. As more investors come to realize the economic realities of the business depression (which has not been caused by last year's market crash), stock prices begin a long decline that will carry them to new depths (see 1932).

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill signed into law by President Hoover June 17 raises tariffs to their highest levels in history—higher even than under the Payne-Aldrich Act of 1909 or the Fordney-McCumber Act of 1922—and embraces a Most Favored Nations policy first introduced in 1923. The protective tariff replaces average import duties from 26 percent to a prohibitive 50 percent, although certain nations are granted large tariff concessions under an arrangement that will continue for more than 45 years. Congress has approved the measure in a special session called by Hoover despite a petition signed by 1,028 economists. Other countries raise tariffs in response to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and a general world economic depression sets in as world trade declines, production drops, and unemployment increases (see 1931).

U.S. unemployment passes 4 million and national income falls from $81 billion to less than $68 billion. Only 3.4 million workers belong to labor unions, down from 5 million in 1920, and union membership is concentrated in just a few industries such as construction, railroads, and local truck delivery. Automobile and steel workers remain unorganized.

Lyons, N.Y.-born United States Steel Co. chief financial officer Myron C. (Charles) Taylor, 56, institutes a work-sharing program to keep every worker employed, even if only for 2 or 3 days per week, and although production plummets to only 17 percent of capacity he keeps the mills running and extends credit to workers (see 1937).

President Hoover says that 4½ million Americans are unemployed. He appoints a Committee for Unemployment Relief in October and requests $100 million to $150 million in appropriations for new public works construction December 2 in his message to Congress. Congress passes a $116 million public works bill December 20.

Economist Arthur T. Hadley dies at Kobe, Japan, March 6 at age 73 while on a world tour; industrialist-philanthropist Henry Phipps dies at Great Neck, L.I., September 22 at age 90; copper magnate-philanthropist Daniel Guggenheim at his Port Washington, L.I., home September 28 at age 74; financier-sportsman Harry Payne Whitney of pneumonia at his 871 Fifth Avenue home October 26 at age 58, survived by his wife, Gertrude (née Vanderbilt), and three children (his brother Payne died 3 years ago); real estate investor (and former E. I. du Pont de Nemours chief) T. Coleman du Pont dies of cancer of the larynx at his Wilmington, Del., home November 11 at age 66.

Russian-born U.S. economist Simon (Smith) Kuznets, 29, begins economic studies that will culminate in the formulation of a Gross National Product (GNP) index of national wealth. Kuznets begins teaching economic statistics at the University of Pennsylvania; his studies will embrace national earnings, income levels, and productivity.

General strikes and riots paralyze Madrid November 15 as economies collapse throughout much of Europe.

More than 1,300 U.S. banks close during the year. New York's Bank of the United States has grown since its founding in 1913 to become the nation's largest, with 62 branches (up from five in 1925) and 440,000 depositors, but it closes December 11 (some members of the New York Clearing House will be accused of anti-Semitism for having let the bank fail, but even those who make the charges will admit that the bank was guilty of dubious practices; founder's son Bernard Marcus and his partner Saul Singer will be convicted and sent to prison in March of next year).

Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon views the Great Depression as a natural phenomenon. "I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism," he has said early in the year, and his tax policies have helped millionaires like himself and their companies, increasing maldistribution of wealth and excessive saving at the expense of ordinary taxpayers; now 75, Mellon favors deflation, opposes public-works projects.

Congress approves a measure December 20 authorizing $116 million to be spent on projects to relieve unemployment, which has reached an estimated 7 million. New York's Chelsea Bank & Trust Co. closes December 23; 20 small banks in six Southern and Midwestern states shut down December 26.

Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 31 at 164.50, down from 248.48 at the end of 1929.