The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-07 00:00:00

RE7URN 70 SPECIE PAYMENTS.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)
The great gold gamble of September appears to
have been the speculators' culminating point. Prices
had for years been unduly influenced by them, but
the break up of the " corner" in gold has had the
unexpected effect of knocking down the whole line
of their operations. From 160 gold fell in an hour
on their black Friday to 130, while instead of rally-
ing it has continued to decline to 122. The full
meaning of this change is but little appreciated in
Europe, although its effects are dimly seen and felt.
It means a revolution in American trade, a change
in all values, from an anchor to a house, from wages
to a potatoe. Before the war the West was in a
ar inflated values and secured for
bad way—the w
the farmer a high price for his produce. The West
had contracted debts in gold, and it then paid the
East in greenbacks ; but the East did not so much
feel this, for everything being at once inflated, if
Eastern merchants lost in one way they gained, at
least apparently, in another. But for inflation there
is always a day of reckoning, and the West is now
experiencing disagreeably the reverse of the position.
The farmers have been cultivating, improving, ex-
pending, and generally employing labour on the
greenback basis; that is, paying on the inflated scale,
while their produce is being purchased on a gold
basis ; that is, at the hard, circumscribed rates be-
fore the war. Then, they had produced on the ex-
penditure of a coin basis and sold on the inflated
currency rates ; now comes the other side of the
picture, for having produced on the currency rates
their crops are selling in the market at little bet-
ter than coin rates ; hence the West is in a bad
way, which means a great commercial depression
throughout the United States. Money is tight, trade
is dull, stocks, shares, and bonds have fallen heavily,
and are falling; real estate with the rest takes the
downward course ; manufactures languish and mills
close ; wages decline, and strikes are general, for the
West is in a bad way, and the West is in a bad way
as gold having fallen to an unpreccdentedly low
figure the inflation bubble kept up by speculators
has burst. The question is, Can the United States
tide over the transition state without a commercial
crash ? Europe ought to cease to predict, for Euro-
pean economists, deducing from things appertaining
to an old continent, and applying the experience to
the things of a new continent, have been for the most
part ridiculoUsly wrong. Had the United States been
an old country there must have been a commercial
smash during the war, with perhaps three or four
since, and the City Editor of the Times would not
then as now have looked so blank when asked,
What about that smash in America ?—At last, how-
ever, the crisis is approaching, and while none of
us can presume to say what is going to happen, all
will look with great interest and anxiety to the pas-
sage of the Union through the critical period. We
do not melt' the nation,but the trading classes of the
community, which will affect individually every citi-
zen. The greatest panic ever seen in this world spread-
ing like wildfire to the big cities of America, and
carrying ruin and dismay all over the country,
would scarcely check even momentarily the onward
march of the itopublic, though such a panic would
entail suPerings And losses to its citizens terrible to
think of. the interesi, apart from its national bear-
ing, as it would require til'e keenest of trained eyes
to perceivi anydifference in the ,T n " supposing that
families by the
a smash was the result ; but thou
thousand would be ruined, and wrecks at:ewn over
, the country. Nor would the citizens alone suffer,. for
1 gnat trading nations act and react on each other