The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1858-08-28
,yh, -, w.,, Cans, Borrow Nropey.

rom 8 TO per cent. PEE nuuom. "Ao"oy
he genuine, hard cash-is piled up IN the
New York city banks TO an extent that would
have been considered fabulous one year
ago. There are over $35 ,OOO, 600 IN specie
in the vaults of those banks, and the depos- |
its are more than three times that sum. 1t
lies there idle, withdrawn from the channels
of trade and Of productive industry. Its
owners are daily losing the value OF its use.
They want customers for it, but customers,
such as they want, do not make their ap-
and thus the plethora OF idle
capital on the one hand, and the stagnation
of commerce and of manufactures, for want
of capital, on the other, continue to be the
two most marked features Of the times.
1t was only the other day that our govern
ment asked the capitalists OF the country
for loan Of 100000, on which it pro-
posed to pay an interest of per cent. per
annum. Bids poured in at once from all
quarters, and when they were opened it was
found that over thirty millions Of dollars
had been offered with premiums for the
privilege ranging from one and half to
seven and three one hundredths per cent
The government secured its ten millions at
an average premium Of four and five Fights
per cent; the rest of the offerings were
thrown out. Here are twenty millions OF
dollars unemployed, ready to pay apremium
for the privilege Of Il five per cent. invest
ment, but which are compelled to 60 back
to the vaults for the want of customers. AT
the same time there is great demand for
money throughout the Western and North
western States, for which double the above
rate of interest would be paid, and for which
the most ample securities would be pledged
could leans be effected. In every other ar
tcle that enters into commerce we find an
equalization of prices in different localities,
the variations being produced by the COST
and risk Of transportation, extent OF Dust
ness done, etc. Money is the only anomaly
in this respect. The most portable OF all
commodities, its price varies almost in pro-
portion to the square of the distance from
the great financial centre, New York. Why
should not this twenty millions which Uncle
Sam refused to take, although offered u
handsome bonus to accept II, be brought to
the West where it is needed, and be loaned
ut 10 per cent. interest! We who live here
at the West know that the securities which
would be pledged for it would render the
investment quite as safe rs though Uncle
Sam himself were on the paper. Why does
it not come? What is the explanation? No
merchant would sell an invoice of goods in
New York city for 100000 if he knew that
by taking them two or three days journey
westward he could dispose of them for
double that amount. Why, then, will Il
capitalist sell the use of his money for less
than five per cent. interest in New York or
Washington, when by sending tito the West
he can readily dispose of it ut 10 per cent?
The ia a hi oh on,nas Iiran,ly ham,
to every citizen of the West demanding his
best consideration.
Want Of confidence, partly in our ability
to pay and partly in our disposition to per-
form our covenants faithfully, is evidently
at the bottom of the whole matter. Western
men know that the first is mistaken notion
growing out of imperfect Information re-
speeding the character and resources of the
country: the second is the result of unwise
legislation in part, and of the bad faith of a
few Of our people, whose sius are visited
alike on the heads of the guilty and of the
innocent. We have before US a copy Of the
N. Y. Erening Post, in which this subject
is viewed from an Eastern stand point, and
that our people MAY fairly comprehend the
light IN which their legislation and their in
diyiuual characters for honesty and fair
dealing are regarded by their EasteIn breth-
reh, we make the following extract:
'The rels IN and the only reason why
the West cannot borrow money! is that the
Western States are continually interfering
in the contracts between the borrower and
the lender; they pass laws which disable the
lender from collecting his money from an
unwilling borrower; they compel him, if he
lends on mortgage and forecoses, to buy
in the property at two-thirds Of its value if
it should not bring that sum in the market;
they compel him to wait year, more or
less, to enforce an execution or to get title
to property sold by the law for the payment
Of his debt. All such laws if made after IL
contract, arc in violation Of its provisions,
and wrong to the lender; if before, they are
oppressive TO the borrower, for they impair
the value Of the security he has to offer to
capitalists, and of course compel him to make
up the difference in prcmium The cost Of
money will always be prOportIoncd 10 the
risk supposed to be taken, and if the CAPT
talists has to lend under laws which do not
respect contracts, which do not leave men Of
mature years and Of Il sound mind to enter
into such agreements Us they please, not
inconsistent with the public peace, he will
of course charge more for his money than
he would in a State which did not NEEDLE
with the contracts of business men, except to
enforce them promptly.
These propositions seem almost too trite
for discussion, and yet it is impossible to
suppose that they are cumprchendcd at the
West, where every kind of business is ,us-
pended for the want of a little money, while
millions upon millions are lying idle within
days journey. The people of the West
certainly cannot realize the folly of their
financial legislation, or they would abandon
it; and vet one would suppose that they
would open their eyes to it when they find
federal securities chased after at little
over four per cent, while their own State
bonds 90 begging over the world at twelve
and fifteen.
1t is Notifying to look Just across our
border and find the Grand Trunk Railroad
borrowing large sums in London at five per
cent, and without an effort, while there is
not western State bond, to say nothing of
lower kind of security, corporate or private,
that could be negotiated for twice the sum
III London or anywhere else. The reason
is that the English people are brought up to
believe that they are able to make their own
bargains better than any one else can make
ana all they expect or VIII permit the gov
eminent to do with them is to enforce them.
This respect of the British government for
the right of the people in this one particular,
more than doubles the value of their prop
erty, for it enables them to pay for more
than twice rs large tract of land as they
could buy in Illinois or Missouri for the same
amount Of interest money.
The daily communication between the
United States aad Europe will soon bring
all the surplus capital Of the Old World,
now netting to the lender barely three per
cent, to our market All that will be re-
CURED to have the use of the capital; in
other words to equalize the value of money
on both sides of the Atlantic, will be, to
furnish equally good security. Let every
stop law and stay law in the States be at
once repealed let the laws for the enforce
ment of contracts be adapted in good faith
to that end, and provide a more rigorous
penal code for the punishment of official
frauds upon the creditors of corporate bod
les. Did no necessity exist for these re-
forms, who can doubt that there would be
Mt least one hundred millions more of money
rnG, Il ~ II