New-York daily tribune., 1857-10-17

| If we have bought palaces IN Filth avenue, when
| we should have been content with second story
in Spring street. if we have trusted utter strar gers
| who never could have been nationally expected to
psy u.s. and who certainly never will if we have
spent in target excursions and lager beer or mint
julep suction the surplus earnings of Aush times,
which we should have laid by against the inevitable
hard times and hard Winter to foDow-how conve-
nient and cOn,olipg to have well got-up Scape
goat at hand on whom to lay the heavy load Of our
improvdence or miscslculation, and drive it indig
naDty forth into the wilderness with shout, and
kick and execrstiOn
For long TINA Messieurs Andrew Jackson and
Nicholas Bidde served US as Scape goats (for ours
being stupeDdous nation was fairly emitted to a
double allowance); and sorry indeed was the prod
jgal or bankrupt who could not lay bis own financial
shortcomings at the door of one or the other Of
these notsbes But Jackson and Bidde are some
years dead, ard are not now serviceabe in their
yicariOus capacity as once; though we notice that
Mr.. Nathan Appleton-a highly respectable Boston
merchant of the last generatiOn-st contrives to
make the latter do very good service in the old line.
Nicholas, it seems, was suddenly called upon BY the
Government to pay over the Treasury deposits and
thus lose the most profitable part of his business
whereupon the feIonious monster actually had the
audacity to contract his discounts If he had only
paid over the Deposits to the Pet Banks aud maiu-
tanned or expanded bis line of discounts at the same
time, he would have made things pleasant and easy
beside giving Gen. Jackson and bis Pets good
chance to break three or four of bis branches, as
they came so near doing that at Savannah; but, by
contracting when others wished to expand, only
because he Lad Millions to pay which they were
daily receiving, he put things into most disagrees
bic position. He ought to have been ashamed Of
himself.
The New-York City Banks are the freshest
Scape goat-Of Mr. Appleton and bis school. They
expanded last Spring, when everything was going
on swimmiDgly; they contracted toward Fall,
when the indications of great financial storm
were too palpable to be mistaken. Mr.. Appleton
s nearly half right in this indictment. Our Banks
ought to have foreseen tlis squall some months
earlier-t surely is not our fault that they did not
though we cannot remember that our repeated
warnings were echoes Of any Cassandra- like NUT
teriDgs of Mr.. Nathan Appleton. Exactly like all,
or nearly all, Of us, the Banks crowded sail while
the skes were bright and the breeze delicious,
without giving sufficient heed to the barometer
BY and by, the blast struck them, and they began
to reef with all their might yet could not do it fast
enough to escape being blown on their beam ends.
AL this was wrong, ssys MIR. Appleton; they could
not have escaped by ree6Dg; they should have
tried the bold experiment of cracking on. We
cannot believe this would have been either prudent
or honest.
The Banks of this City owed large sums to their
depostOrs and blholders. The latter were meas
ursbly secured the payment Of the former must
depend on the goodness of the Banks assets. Sup
pose our Banks bad expanded Ten Millions month
ago, they must thereby have increased by so much
their Obligations, payable on demand, and accepted
instead the Obligations of their customers, payable
at future periods. They must have loaned these
Ten Millions mainly to houses then in the agOnies
of dissOlution-in good part to our commission
hcu,es and the jobbers of dry goods. Some of it
would have been taken to pay the manufacturers Of
New England for their fabrics sold in this market;
good deal must have been transferred to foreign
manufacturers or their agents in payment for their
fabrics. Very pleasant this would obviously have
been for the receivers but would it have been safe
for the Banks or Il cir Gre dtorsl We cannot say
| that it would.
lis as ole as easy for Mr.. Appleton to urge that
this expansion would have been safe because sbip-
men,s Of specie to Europe had ceased. The ship
ntDts had ceased because of the severe pressure
which MIR. Appleton deprecates; they would at all
events, night) have been resumed the instant that
pressure was relaxed. They did not cease because
our fearful foreign debt was paid of, but because
the debtors were no longer able to pay. They
owed still, and the jobbers land through them the
whole country were heavily in debt to them. We
believe specie not only would have gone, but must
go yet, the moment our jobbers are relieved from
the utmost stringeIcy of pressure. We do not
object to this; let every man pay his debts who
can, whether bis creditor live on one continent or
the other; but lending the money of those who
don't owe Europe whsrewith to stimulate a further
export of coin, is quite another matter.
For the single and special purpose of Fastening
The surplus products Of the Great West to market
before Winter closes the water courses, We hold a
moderate increa,e Of loans justihabe, but for no
other under exist ng circumstances. That ia prac-
tically measure Of liquidation rather than of ex.
oausion: means of rescung the Wheat and Flour
Of the West from the imminent peril Of being
locked ND BY the frost Of Winter from the hupgry
thousands of our Cities and from the just require
ments of Commerce. The West is ready now tc
pay ,ome portion Of its mercantile Indebtedness in