The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1857-11-28

, rcPe-Increasc or American influence
There is disposition both in England and in
this country to underrate the Importance of the
tempest that has lately passed over the financial
| world, and the journals that lend their ear to
and follow the opinions of some interest-bound
clique do not perceive the vast import of
events that are terminating round them.
| Single events that indicate the course which
the great upper current Of affairs is taking are
daily transpiring. Yesterday one of our Wash
ington correspondents advised us that very
high diplomatic authority in England has writ
ten home that the wisest heads there are
shaking in view of the advices which are pour
ing in upon them from America, and in the
same letter tells us of another incident which,
in his view probably, had no connection with
what he had just before stated. We allude to
the announcement that Mr.. Belmont would re-
ire from political life, and 60 to Paris to take
the management of the banking house Of the
Rothschilds. Both of these things point to one
great truth, which is the wide and growing in
fuence that affairs in America are
attaining in Europe. In fact, both to
| England and France the commerce
and the commercial system of the United States
are of vital interest. We are in a very great
degree the largest foreign consumers of their
| products and manufactures. and the most profita-
| BILE employers of their accumulated capital.
Whatever, therefore, disturbs our consumption
of the yield of their industry or our safe en-
ployment of their wealth, comes at once home
to their pockets and their hearts
1t is this that has led to the anxiety that
attends the receipt of advices from America in
London that has brought into life the numerous
| English, French and German banking houses in
| New York; that has carried Bates and Stur-
| gis into the responsible management of the
| London house of Earrings; that has given wealth
and influence to Peabody; and that now is
about to carry Mr.. Belmont to the head of the
house of the Rothschilds. 1t is true that Mr..
Belmont is not an American. but he has per-
fected his business education by course of
many years in this country, and looks at affairs
now with an American eye, and judges men and
things by an American standard. In this as
well as in many other things, we may perceive
the indications of the daily advance of Ameri-
can influence in Europe, and the gradual reli-
ance of its leading interests upon American
talent, energy and enterprise.
But the effects of the present financial revul-
sion in Europe will reach much further than
the simple advancement Of American influence
in European affairs. In our first comments
upon the adyices of the suspension of the Bank
act in England by a treasury letter, we stated
that it was the failure of the whole financial
system of Europe. A succinct historical review
will demonstrate this. When Junius was writ
| ing his celebrated letters to the London Morning
Adrertiser-now nearly ninety years ago-he
stated in private note to Woodfall, the editor,
| that in his opinion the country was ruined; that
| it could not bear the burthens which the gov
eminent was placing upon it; and that he was
selling out Of the funds. AT that time the public
debt of Great Britain was less than one hundred
| and fifty millions Of pounds, and its market va
| lue somewhere about sixty-three. The prediction
of Junius was falsifed by two little events that
subsequently occurred and which have enabled
England to carry debt of more than five times
the amount which he thought to be the limit of
her ability. Watts perfected the steam engine,
| and Arkwright invented the spinning jenny.
I0ckc Inventions 1HCTtdStu productive
power of her population hundred thousand
fold. Her mines were re-opencd, her manufac
turing industry recreated, and her commerce
increased to hitherto unimagined extent.
| Upon this new power the credit system was
vastly expanded, new wars were undertaken,
| immense loans negotiated, and the nation, exu-
bcrant with its new prosperity. bore the in
4
Other governments seeing the effects produced
in England have followed her example. Every
where large standing armies have been kept
up, wars have been made, loans contracted, and
hardly one Of the governments of Europe for a
long series Of years has exhibited the healthy
condition Of a surplus of revenue over expen-
diture. The deficiencies have been covered up
by various financial tricks, such as funding old
debts and creating others in new form. Some
Of them, as for instance England, has occa-
sionally resortcd to practical partial repudia-
| ton by a forced reduction Of the interest So
long as this vast system Of expansion and ex-
travagance was gradual, and the value of labor
was able to keep pace with the enhanced prices
of food and necessaries of life, matters went
along smoothly.
| But the sudden increase of the circulating
medium by the vast production of gold in
California and Australia has destroyed the
equilibrium between labor and prices; and
this occurring at time when the spend
thrift governments of Europe had nearly
| or quite reached the limit Of their facility
TO create new debts the ability of the
people to pay has broken down under the joint
pressure of the stockholders and the specua-
tors. and the end Of the whole system has come
The necessity of paper expansion is
nothing more than depreciation Of the stand
ard for the payment Of debts, which has been
openly acknowledged by the government and
= IL.