The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-01-08

! Enquirer has the capacity to know. As for the
, imputation Of being crazy, that is very COM
mou one for shallow intellect to make against
those whom it connot comprehend is the
only compliment that stupidity can pay to sense
That the editor OF the Enquirer should feel that
he has been engaged in very foolish under
taking, is the only symptom of reason he has
displayed We care very little what the lner-
chants of New York think of our views--we
know they will be approved by the farmers and
planters of Virginia.
The Enquirer proceeds
We cannot pass over the egregious blunder
Mr.. Fisher committed in his first article, which
he endeavors to shuttle out of and cover up with
30 much industry in his second To ascertain
the profitableness Of an investment after twenty
five years, our fnaDcier makes an aggregate
! of the original amount laid out and the interest
Y upon it for all the intervening period, and com
pares the dividend for the last year with that
aggregate taking no account OF antecedent div-
bends. II Mr.. Fisher had been living fifty years
later, and made his computation for 1899 in
stead Of l849, his aggregate cost OF the New
York canals would have been some two or three
hundred uillions and the revenue for the last
centage Of that cost, although sufficient in the
mean time to have paid off the debt Of construc-
ton halfa dozen times. Won't Mr. Fisher con-
fess that such a computation would be very alb
surd, aud that his computation for 1850, upon
the same principle, was very ridiculous and
most stupid blundcr in fnancier! Advised OF
his error by us, he allows credit for current
revenues in his second article but commits ~
great blunder in the amount us he did before
| in the principle of calculation. Now this test
of profitableness after allowing dividends ms an
offset to interest, which Mr.. Fisher applies to
the New York Canals, will be borne by no other
system of public works in the Union, but those
works We have seen how trinmphantly they
sustain it. Let any person try the Massachu-
sets railroads or any other public works on the
two continents. and see whether they pay six
per cent dividends upon their total cost, with
interest up to the date of calculation, after de-
Quoting the nett revenues,
We have already stated and shown that we
did not make IAN aggregate of the original
amount laid out and the interest upon it for all
the intervening period" and then compared the
dividend for the last year with that aggregate"
We only counted half the interest for the aver
age period of the Investment, allowing the other
half for the intervening dividends, and we have
shown that allowance to be almost exactly correct,
for after looking infinitely into those dividends
and their effect on the interest calculation, we
have shown the result of the last computation
to be almost identical with the first.
We hare shown that the New York Canal will
not stand the test, of meeting by dividends, the
Az md ;ofo and
they will not and no other works will, why that
a most awkward argument for run-mad specu-
lators on the public crib TO stumble upon.
The Enquirer goes on to show by grand nr
ray Of figures, that the property of New York
declined from 1921 ,255,l23 in 1915 to $685.
427,346 in 1926, as an evidence of the tendency
of affairs before the canals were in operation.
But the writer is probably ignorant Of the fact,
that the year 1915 was one of enormous expan-
sion and high prices, resulting from the European
and our own war-an expansion that continued, ac-
cording to his own figures until 1918, when the
property of that State had increased without
canals, to $309, 332,74O Then the banks ex-
ploded, and every thing went down until 1922,
when the property of New York was reduced to
1921, 1903 ,5OO--almost one third--after which,
without canals it rose in 1925 to S263, ,346.
Still the year 1926 was the year of the cotton
speculation and collapse, and prices all over the
Union were still low. But the Enquirer then
shows, that from 1926 to 1885, the property of
New York had risen to S528,576, 379--all be-
cause of the canals. But does not every planter
in Virginia know, that the year 1885 was one Of
universal expansion, not only in the United
States, but over the whole commercial world
that we were then borrowing at the rate of fifty
millions annually from Europe-that the banks
were all expanded wheat sold for two dol
lars bushel in Virginia. Was that because of
the New York canals!
The Enquirer told us, in its previous article,
with the ignorant dogmatism 80 peculiar to il,
that the real property Of New York had increased
from $2l4so2, 2o4 in 1898, to $780, 62,9Ol in
ls5O--and nscrbed that to the canals. We
showed that so far was this from being true,
that the property of New York had fallen from
1912, ,4s7 in 1887, to S666,O89,526 in lS48.
by the Enquirer and what does the editor say
Why that it must have been shy some error in
the assessment Now, is it not a most CON-
Portable amount Of selfconceit to have, to be
cool enough, when convicted of gross blunder
in argument, to say that there must be some
error in the assessment"
We compared the year 1887 with ls4s, be-
cause both were years of expansion. The year
ls4s, Immediately following the great exporta-
ton Of produce to Europe at high prices-and
yet, Notwithstanding all the influence of canals
completed in New York, her property had fallen
in these eleven years more than six millions of
dollars
But as the Enquirer doos not find tho prop
erty of New York rated high enough in the Of
fetal reports for his argument he insists it ought
to be higher. No doubt. He tells us that the