Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-12-02
Cbt 9aiIpl Spp,
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1854.
HAnp rrnrs.-some Of the whig papers, in

HARD TIMEs.-Some of the Wing papers, in
discussing the " Hard Times question, pro-
pose, as panacea for our commercial depres-
sion, an increase of the tariff. The dullness
of business, they say, is caused by our large
importations of British products, by the con-
sequent accumulation of liabilities to British
traders, and by the pressure of those liabilities
Just at this time. Their theory is that Britain
has become rich from her trade with Ameri-
ca, while we have become crippled and poor
on account of it. An increase of ten per cent.
upon import duties, they think, would regu-
late this and keep us in easy circumstances
all the time. But, unfortunately for the theo-
ny of our high tariff wings, Britain is, Just
now, in even more sorry commercial plight
than we are Her merchants are failing in
business every article of food is up to the
starvation point; the bullion is leaving the
vaults of the Bank of England; and the mon
ey lenders of Lombard street are unusually
cautious and timid. Probably the tories of
Britain, specializing upon the causes of the
present depression of business in that coun-
try, will attribute it to free trade in bread.
stuffs and may recommend the reimposition OF
the corn laws, to shut out American wheat
-four, as panacea for their dull times. Our
high tariff wings and the high tariff tories Of
England, have the same theory, tor the cause
of the commercial depression, which prevails
in their respective countries. The wings say
that we are depressed because we buy so many
British manufactured goods; and the tories
say that Britain is depressed because she buys
SO much American produce. Surely, both Of
those classes of the same school of political
econom SITS cannot be right.
The present temporary depressions in both
countries, is caused by speculation. If trade
was left to the operation of its own laws, and
was regulated according to its legitimate re-
quirements, such panics and crashes as we
have seen in mercantile operations would rev.
er again occur. The legitimate trade of the
world requires 50 much grain, SO much cloth,
so much hardware, &C., to be produced every
year; and, also, so many ships, railroads,
cars, &C., to be built, to meet the regular in
crease of business. Wise merchants calcu-
late these things and regulate their operations
accordingly; but spectators do not do so.-
They go in for g driving trade;'' they cause
more railroads to be built than are at present
needed and more manufactured goods to be
produced than Sill be wanted for a long time
to come. They create an artificial prosperity
by using, on credit, in the present, the antic
ipated prosperity of the uncertain future
They exaggerate the prices of all sorts Of
property and they encourage the most pro-
fuse, and vulgar species of luxury. Business
so regulated, is always dangerously feeble
1t bursts up like soap bubble, whenever the
public confidence ceases to sustain it. Men
who have money, grow timid, and i'll not
lend it to borrowers, who want to embark it
in business, already enormously inflated, and
the conse sequence is that the Fictitious fabric
crumbles into ruins, causing distress in the
meantime but leaving the field of the future,
free for legitimate trade. Schuylerizing, and
vulgar extravaganza amongst the mercantile
classes, have deueloped the internalweakness of
trade. These developments have caused mon
lei men to be cautious to whom they lend !;
and their caution makes general depression.
A nation like ours, with thirty millions of
people, and with all the boundless resources
that nature can give us, cannot long have
hard times. If trade is let alone it viii regu-
late itself, according to its own immutable
laws, and in short time we shall have busy
wharves and full workshops, again. The
present depression of trade was not caused by
the tariff, and tinkering the tariff would not
mend them.