The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1857-07-11
Eas. and west.

Whatever are to be the commercial re-
suits OF the business Of our country for the
year 1857, says the Chicago Real Estate and
News Letter, no one can shut his eyes to the
fact, that Emigration must exercise con-
trolling influence upon them. For the hrst
time in our history rs nation, this predic-
ton can now be made. We do not mean
the immigration Of foreigners from abroad,
but the exodus Of countless thousands now
going on from East to West. The newspa-
pers- all over the Eastern States announce
the departure Of companies Of farmers, me-
chanies, business men, and others; and there
is scarcely village anywhere around US
from which some persons will not be found
to have departed. Farms are everywhere
advertised for sale, the owners giving rs q
reason for selling, that they intend to emf
crate. Certainly, the weA could not -four
ish so astonishingiy. if this exodus was not
going on. But, added to the emigration OF
men, is the transfer Of money. Millions OF
Eastern capital are going with the sAnigrants,
until the drain begins to alarm the banks
and business men Of the East. We know
that complaint has been made that remit
tances from Western merchants have not
come in as freely the present season as
aforetime, and that they are accused OF IN
yesting in land the money which they ought
to have RENTED for goods. But the real
deficiency, whatever it may be, is found in
the millions which are leaving US to sustain
the West, to be there invested, or used for
banking purposes.
Yet, If any serious deficiency of this kind
exists, it can hardly prevail to an extent
sufficient to embarrass the East, unless the
latter is wholly dependent for its vitality on
the West-a fact which the East would be
very unwilling to admit. If the people of
the Western States have become absorbed
in speculative movements, those Of the
Eastern States have done no more than fol-
low their example, and oftener with the
most disastrous experience. Who but the
Eastern men originated the gigantic scheme
of spending five millions of dollars in buy
ing up the worn out and depopulated lands
of Virginia-an enterprise large enough to
swallow up thousand Of the small opera
tions at the West which make so much noise
on paper? Where has speculation run
more to riot than in and near the city Of
New York -? Where has been developed so
infinite variety of schemes to make land
sell that never sold before, as in Philadel-
phia? If the West has speculated, has she
not grown rich upon it-and is she not des-
tined to grow even richer yet? If there
were more opportunities for specializing
here, there would be speculation IN proper
ton; but the field being exhausted, while
the propensity remains, the operators trans
fer themselves and their capital to the new
and boundless one which opens on them ey-
erywhere in the West.
E,fn will lrs
invites them, and those who cannot go
themselves, will send their capital to work
for them. The Atlantic States have for
years been gorged with English and Ger
man capital, brought here by the tempta-
ton Of high rate Of interest. Every rail-
road and canal in Pennsylvania, New Jer-
sey and New York has been built with for
eign capital. We hold out every possible
temptation for that capital to come. We
succeeded in transferring it hither, and who
dare censure us for SO doing? Meantime,
our Western brethren need roassas n0,c as
much as we did then. Who shall righte-
ously censure them for holding out even
greater temptations to capitalists than we
did? Their ability to offer such enormous
temptations constitutes the great element of
their strength. They pay we'll every way,
because they can afford to. Heavy, we
know, will be the drain upon the East for
1857. 1t will reach at least million of en-
igrants, each taking an average of one hun
bred dollars, equal to an hundred millions.
If the infusion of this mighty stream Of gold
into the currency of the West that has so
quickened it into activity, and the abstrac-
ton of it from the currency of the East,
that has given an alarming sluggishness to
its trade. Hence it is that emigration will
be found to exercise a controlling influence
on the business results of 1857. We have
no foreign or intestine war-no pestllence
or famine. But the vast movements of the
masses from one section to another, will be
found, in the end, entirely competent to
produce results, both social and CONNER
cial, quite as remarkable, though not SOL
tragicaI, as either of these.-Davenpor
Real Estate Reqister.