Democratic standard. [volume] (Georgetown, Brown County, Ohio) 1837-1850, 1840-11-17

among mechanics within the last twenty
or thirty years.
But this is not the whole of the story.
These great accidental demands for me.
chanlcal labor tempt great numbers to
leave the cultivation of the soil, which,
ina new country, will always yield sub
sistence, generally independence, and
sometimes great wealth. Hence thou
sands of active, intelligent young men,
instead of settling upon Western lands,
with the certainty of becoming indepen
dent farmers in FIVE or six years, rush to
the cities in pursuit of mechanical en-
Ployment, encounter all the fluctuations
to which tits exposed, and, at the end of
live or six years, find themselves Just
where they began in wealth, and with the
loss of that best of all money, time. And
besides the uncertainty of mechanical
employment, they do not save more,
from the high wages which lis vicisstudes
sometimes afford, than they would from
the moderate wages yielded by the con-
slant employment of a sound business,
for the very cause of all these vicssi-
tudes in employment, paper money, tenn
porarily enhances the price of all the ne
cessaries and convenences of life. If,
with currency of one hundred millions,
a mechanic can purchase barrel of -four
for five dollars, or pound of beef for
eight cents, he will be compelled to doub-
lie these prices if the currency be aug
mented to two hundred millions; and
therefore he actually receives no more
in wages at two dollars daily in the Sec
ond case, than in wages at one dollar dai-
ly in the first. Now he must remember
that all excessive building, or excess in
any operations requiring mechanical la
Dor, is produced, under our banking sys-
TEN, by expansions Of the cwrency-I
Good enterprise are always stimulated by
these expansions, and arrested by con-
fractions. For proof of this, we appeal
to history for the last twenty years or
more. During this period, building was
always extensive when the banks dis
counted freely, and arrested when they
ceased to discount, discounted but little,
or suspended.
But excessive building, is stimulated by
the very mechanical labor which it re-
quires; and thus it contains the very
seeds of its own 4inJaation, and conse-
guent arrest. A sudden demand, in
this city, for ten thousand additional me-
creates a sudden demand for
habitations, and rise ofrents; for if ten
men suddenly come to this ci-
ly, most of them have families, they must
be lodged, and those with families will
consult economy in having houses or
parts of houses. The rise of rents
eads to new buildings; for spectators,
tempted BY the rise, borrow money of
banks, to invest in building small houses
'or mechanics. But the excitement
must end; the overstock will remain
without tenants, these vacancies will re-
luce rents, pay day to the banks must
come upon the borrowing builders, and
heir rents will not enable them to pay
Then comes the revulsion; and then all
hese mechanics, tempted from their
ZONES by high wages, are left without
employment, and oftentimes without the
means ofgoing away.
The mechanics of the large cities,
inding that high wages would not cover
till higher prices for necessaries have
,ery unwisely sought remedy in Trades
Unions and "strikes," and as unwisely
their difficulties to "combina-
ions among employers" and "conspira-
lies of the rich against the poor" BY do
ng their own thinking in their chimney
corners, instead of listening to the in
Iammatory harongues ofdemagogues in
'ublic meetings, seeking votes to secure
ficial salaries, our mechanics would
ave perceived that the whole difficulty
vas caused by the expansion of the cur
ency; the substitution Of fuctuating
aper currency, sometimes superabund-
mt and sometimes sufficient, for a stea-
y currency of coin and its true represen-
alive. Mechanics want steady employ
lent, and due proportion between re-
eipts and expenditures. They will find
he last, under paper currency, only du-
ing expansions, for the expansions al
rays exceed the receipts during contrac-
ons. They will find the first steady
mployment, only under currency of
DIN, or its true representative--Pila.
ledger.