The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-28 00:00:00

UST.

ILLINOIS CENTRAL. RAILROAD COM-

PAIV

The London ag:nts of the Illinois Central Rail-
road Company have received a communication,
dated Nov. 13, from Mr. Walker, the chairman of
the executive committee at New York, which pos-
sesses much interest at the present political and
financial crisis. lire extract as follows :
The issue of the Presidential election last week
has caused great excitement in the eastern portion
of the Southern States. In regard to the business
relations of the South with the North, there is much
division of opinion in the Southern States; there is
no intimation that Louisiana, Missouri, or indeed

that any of the most northern or western of the
Southern States, participate in the extreme ideas
entertained in South Carolina, of non-intercourse
with the North. The suggestion of disunion na-
turally induces great cautioa in banking
institu-
tions, and among capitalists. Southern drafts or
notes are not negotiated with facility, and exchange
drawn by Southern banks has declined, and sales
of sterling bills made in New Orleans as low as 4
per cent. The bills sent here for sale scarcely meet
purchases at any rate, without a local endorsement ;
and thus, in a single week, the everyday commer-
cial transactions between the North and South
are fettered with such distrust, that a resort to
gold, as a medium for payment, is imperative.
The capital of the New York bankers had, for a
long period, been loaned upon stocks, at low rates
of interest. The call for these loans, and shipments
of specie South, has hastened the panic in Wall-
street, which will hardly be confined to stocks. The
inability or unwillingness of the South to pay its
debts to Northern merchants and manufacturers,
is daily more manifest ; for the South, aside from
political uneasiness, has this year to contend with
a short crop of cereals, and must purchase largely
to feed her population. I need hardly say that, in
the present disturbed state of our mercantile rela-
tions, there is no concurrence of opinion as to the
result. The decline in the Illinois Central Rail-
way shares has been 26 per cent., upon the New
York Central 19 per cent., upon New York and
Erie 14 per cent., and upon other shores in a si-
milar ratio. Mercantile paper, which was current
ten days since at 7 per cent., is unsaleable at 12 to
18 per cent. per ann. There is no new element of
danger to affect the Illinois Central property. unfa
vourably. The State of Illinois is blessed with the
most abundant harvests, and after delivering im-
mense quantities at the shipping points, all in fact
for which there were means to remove by water or
rail, it is conceded that large stocks of wheat must
of necessity lie over winter, and that the corn crop
just harvested has yielded 50 per cent. more than
any preceding one. At the present moment a pe-
riod of commercial embarrassment is apparent ;
previous experience seems to warrant the con-
clusion that next spring will show a large im-
migration to the west. A share of this will
reach our lands, and the sales in 1861 may
reach 2,000,000 dols. to 3,000,000 dols. In
this case the company at the close of next year
will hold an amount of notes for lands sold,
exceeding its funded debt, and with a surplus
of 1,100,000 acres of land. The sales this year
average 15 dols. per acre, and under the present
terms of credit, interest at 6 per cent. each year
in
advance, with the first payment of the principal in
four years, greater punctuality may be looked for
in the payments. The total collections in cash and
bonds at the close of this year will exceed four
millions of dollars ; and of the construction bonds
1,668,000 dols. are already paid. Our financial
condition presents no motive for alarm ; the pay-
ment of the free land debt and of our interest this
autumn leaves us with a debt of about 400,000 dols.,
which matures at convenient periods, and is bor-
rowed at 7 per cent. interest. This will be reduced
next month below 300,000 dols., and in regard to
the payments of interest next year, a moderate in-
crease of traffic will leave sufficient profit from the
earnings of the road. Many will remember the
short harvests in the United Kingdom in 1847, and
the effect upon the prices of breadstuffs in this
country. The prairies seem to have opened up
since that period, and from Chicago alone, which
could hardly be said to exist at that time, we have
had a supply of breadstuff in excess of the home
demand, enough to furnish all which England re-
quires to make up her deficit from the worst harvest
for 20 years. Chicago has already furnished
33,000,000 bushels of grain, and the capacity of the
steamboats on the Illinois and Mississippi rivers is
taxed to the utmost, taking flour and grain south.