Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1857-11-13
THE WILMINGTON JOURNAL.
WILMINGTON, N. O.. MONDAY. NOV. 9. 1857.
The Bubble Burst Who Will BLOW Anothers

The Bubble Burst.-Who Will Blow Another'
Land stealing has received check-weSern lands are
drug in the market Speculation has been stimulated
and done to death. Ruin has overtaken hundreds OF
operators and financial suffering has Overspread the
land and for this the land mania measurably to blame.
Grants of wild lands will no longer build railroads if in
truth they ever did do Congress will be free from
the opportunities of land-beggars The proceeds of
the Public Lands will be small enough in all conscience
the lands themselves will not for years pay for
their management and sale.
We do not say that the sole cause Of the financial diff
cuties of the year 1857 is to be found in Western Land
speculation but no one denies that these specuatons
bore important part in bringing these difficulties
Few can doubt that Eastern Funds carried West
for speculative purposes and returned again only for re-
dempton Few can doubt that the new railroads built
upon the grants of public lands used speculative
engines to assist in the land schemes of interested par
ties or suppose for moment that such roads really
the profitable affairs to the stockholders that these par
ties represented them to be- for if they had been such
roads would not now be in the suspended and embarrassed
position which they are known to occupy.
We know that the tendency to expansion adventure,
speculation overrading overcredtng, inevitable in
new country ny dill dCtt'c, Pio-
gressve people, and it is folly to charge all of this ten
dency upon any particular institution or agency, as
Banks Railroads. or anything of the kind. The ten
dency exists by and has its origin in the nature of things
and of people, and if men and women could not over
expand their business their expenses and their skirts
through the agency of banks and hoops we presume
they would find other way is instanccd in the
case of English Peer whose wife had got him to
promise that he would lorsakc all sorts of games of
chance, enumeratng all the known ways Of gambling
In day or two after she found him and one of his
companions busiv engaged in the investigation of hay
stack. She WIS somewhat surprised at his newly
awakened interest in agricultural productions until she
found that the gentlemen were pulling stalks of the dried
grass and betting large sums upon the longest.
But the very fact that this tendency to undue ecOn
already exists, is the strongest argument against any
policy calculated unduy to stimulate and excite that
which, even without such stimulation and excitement is
too apt to run into excess That bank expansions have
this tendency, there can be doubt That great ia
ctes for land trading have the effect is equally
certain and unquestOnabe for the experience OF the last
few years shows it, These things do not create the
spirit of reckessness complained Of but they stimulate
and develop into undue proportions.
Suppose then that to existing causes and stimuants
to speculative action, another and a powerful one
had been added Suppose that the public land had
been distributed, according to the plan proposed in
Benefits BILL, as it is called according to any
other of the plans brought forward and the interests
and energies Of hrtyOnc State governments, thus be-
come western landowners, had been brought into the
field to swell the tide-to push forward the movement
who can tell what the result? Suppose the distribution
scheme had been carried through, and had become a
law, and, to go further, suppose North Carolina
Virginia and South Carolina had thus become prOprie
tors of certain millions of western lands and the en-
plOyers Of agencies, runners, and all and singular the
machinery to push these lands into market, with thei1
schemes circulars and advertisements around, to draw
off populations labor and capital from their vitaE
to these western possessions and then suppose this the
rule throughout the land what State what community
yea what individual would have escaped the mania,
have failed to suffer by the crash? The effects of Thu
stand What might they not have been, and wha
might they not be again, if such wild schemes tn
dstribuonists contend for could only be carried int
effect?
Times like these afford practical tests to be applied tt
such ad captand,m measures, and the appeals made il
their behalf-they enable to the judgments
the acumen and the motives of their advocates