Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1857-11-05
Probable Prices of Produce.

We notice in many of our Western ex-
changes letters from farmers who speak OF
selling at present prices as Sacrificing
their produce, and who advise their fellow
farmers to hold on for better prices. Even
those western farmers who are in debt, and
their name is Legion, crave indulgence
from their creditors on the ground that
they would be losing so much by selling
now We have no doubt from what we
see, that this feeling is widespread through
out the country, and that confidence of
getting better prices hereafter induces ma
nv man to hold-on who would otherwise
be seller. Those, especially, who have
bought farms at high prices, and paid ex-
pansion wages for labor, are very naturally
tempted to take this view and to look for
higher figures as justly their due.
Now, it is an ungracious thing to have
to dissipate such views as these, and we
would fain escape from it; but we feel that
we would not be doing our duty if we did
not give our reasons for arriving at differ
ent conclusion. We like to see labor well
rewarded, and it would crafty us as much
as the agricultural community to see them
getting good and satisfactory prices for
their produce; but it is wisdom always to
submit to what is inevitable. We trust that
no one will accuse us, in what we are going
to say, of being in the interest of specula-
tors. The monetary revolution has knock
ed the noise out of the spectators. They
cannot obtain the money to speculate with,
and even if they could, that feeling of conf
dence which lies at the basis Of all specula-
tive movements, is gone. There are no
buyers, now, but those who buy to sell
again as soon as possible. Besides, as our
country readers are generally aware, spec
ulators in produce almost invariably operate
for rise and very rarely, if at all, for a
fall
Our reasons for thinking that prices will
not improve are easily stated and compre-
hended. They are as follows:
lst. The crops of the year have been
immense everywhere throughout the coun-
try, and the favorable season for fall SOW
ing gives promise of like abundance next
year.
I'd, The crops everywhere throughout
Europe, this year, were large.
Sd. The paralysis which has overtaken
this country, (and Europe, too, by this
time compels everybody to economise, and
curtails consumption to certain degree.
4th. The basis of our monetary currency
has been contracted, within the last three
months, to the extent of S5O,OOO,O0O, and
this contraction has a natural tendency to
depress prices. And
5th. The system of credit having been
so injuriously affected, business, will have
to be conducted on cash plan, for some
time, which will prevent any movement
to force prices up by buying on credit
and holding on until the market can be af-
fected.
To this may be added the fact that as
the main demand for produce must come
the seaboard, and as the winter is now up
on us, when the railroads afford the only
means of transportation, the increased pri-
ces of transportation will necessarily tend
to depress prices at the west.
In 1887. when the banks suspended, pri-
ces were enormously high; but that was
because our own crop was failure, and we
had to draw supplies from Europe. The
case is exactly reversed now. We have
not only enough for ourselves. but Europe
is so well supplied by her own harvest that
she will not buy of us unless she can buy
cheaply. Already the monetary difficulties
have reduced the price of cotton nearly 100
per cent; and this being the case with an
article which we grow exclusively, and
which Europe cannot do without, how can
breadstuffs advance, when Europe produces
them in common with Ourselves?
We 90 not intend to enlarge upon the
reasons we have given. If they no not
carry conviction with them, as stated, it
would be useless to amplify them. We
only ask that our country friends will con-
slider them calmly, and as having been ten
rendered with a single eye to their benefit.
The country is laboring under a depres-
sion which extends to every man in the
land. The manufactures of the country,
which afforded the great source of demand,
have nearly all been stopped, their work
men sent adrift, and many of them from
being consumers have turned producers
Money is growing scarcer every day, and
is not likely soon to be plenty. The towns
are emptying themselves into the country,
the whole tendency being, everywhere, to
cut off demand at the great sources of cen
sumption; and when to all this add the
great abundance of breadstuffs, what is
there to build hope on for higher prices
The present depression is not mere tenn
porary one. 1t w II take the country years
to get over it; and the sooner we accom-
lnodate ourselves to our changed state Of
circumstances, the better it will be for all
parties concerned.-PiHsburgh Gazette.
~ The hypocracy of the Black Dem
ocracy is well illustrated by their inconsist-
ency on the currency question. They have
from the foundation of the Government,
had the State of Virginia under their con-
troll, and yet its people are cursed with
scores of the meanest shin-plas:er factories
in the country; at least, such is the account
given them by the Rrichnond Examiner.
The Virginia banks, we believe, invariably
resort to the trick of issuing by the branch
es the bills which are payable at the prin-
cipal bank, and vice versa. And the Er-
aniaer says that practically they have al
ways been in state of suspension, SO far
as the people are concerned. That paper
alleges that the holder of a ten dollar bill
could not (prior to suspeusion) present it
for collection without meeting with insult.
South Carolina, another State pre-emi-
nently "Democratic" in its professions. has