The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1857-11-08

IMPORTANT MOVEMENTS RELATIVE TO THE
CREDIT SYsTEM.-The hardware dealers of New
York, Boston and some of the principal cities
throughout the country, as we'll as the members
of other trades, have held important meetings
recently in regard to the propriety and expe-
diency of shortening the time of credits The
necessity of such a movement has been exhibited
in q striking manner by the panic under which
business of all kinds is now laboring, and
which is to great extent attributable to the
excessive expansion of the system.
AT meeting of the hardware trade, which
was held in this city on Friday last, report
was adopted in which mot a little share of the
blame" is laid upon some of our city journals"
for pursuing "a course calculated to produce
a panic by creating feeling of distrust
toward many of our solvent corpora
tons" Now the hardware people are
entirely mistaken in the views they have
taken regarding the press, for they should know
that the press has no power to injure any insti-
tuition or corporation that conducts its business
on sound principles of trade. 1t is only by ex-
posing their Encouragement, their fraudu-
lent operations, or their unsoundness, that
such institutions and corporations are brought
to the ground; and in doing this it is comforting
benefit on the business community. The press
is, in fact the great CONSERVATION of the COM
mercial and mercantile interests % we'll as Of
the political and social we'll being Of the coun-
try; and it is as the CONSERVATION of these inte-
rests that it possesses so much power and influ-
"a -, 4ha dina opo;p, ~ tho roIs
system causing over importations, and extrava-
gance both in business and living, that we are
to find the true causes of the present financial
,evulsion. Against ell this the HERALD has
warned the people; and if any of the newspapers
have at all aided in bringing about the crisis it
has only been by being faithful recorders
of the effects of this system and the faults of
the business community. While, however the
hardware dealers have thus taken the press to
task for the course it has considered its duty to
pursue, they have admitted that it is to the ex-
tent to which the credit system has been carried
in their own business, as in others, that the pre-
sent depressed condition Of trade is owing, and
they now seek a remedy for the evil in a reduc-
ton of the time of credits from six to four
months. They have endeavored by their &C
ton on Friday last, to bring their business as
near as practicable to the cash system and in this
way to place it upon firm and healthy basis
The example which the hardware trade of this
city, and the tobacco dealers of Boston, have
thus set, should be followed up by all the other
trades, if they would prevent the periodical re-
currence of revulsons like that now upon the
country.
There is another consideration suggested by
the reading of the report already referred to,
and which the meeting have entirely overlook
ed While censuring the press they appear to
have forgotten that they are indebted to 1t for
the facilities it has afforded them of making
their action known to their customers and the
members of the trade generally throughout the
country.