New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1858-01-21

sgo. Is actually better paid now than he was then,
and ali may be easily adjusted He who remains
idle now because he cannot obtain so many dollars
for weeks labor as he did year ago. is deserving
neither of sympathy nor better fortune. There are
and ever were misery and gripping employers, lend
ers, capitalists; but it il no hardship to work for
twenty five per cent. less money, with -four, sugar,
pork, &c, at their present prices, than was re-
ceived when the chief necesssres Of life bore the
prices Of twelve months ago.
As to the direct causes Of the late Reyusion there
is no substantial difference Of opinion among nteLi-
gent persons. That there were excessive Trade
excessive Speculation. excessive Debt and Credit
. excessive Importation, no one seriously doubts.
That an efficiet Protective Tariff would have kept
our country out of the vortex Of this mad whrl-
pool-would have divided it into q number of
less formidable and less destructive vortices
we most earnestly believe, while the
Free Traders DO not. They do not see, as we
do, that, under the recently accelerated tendency
toward that state of international intercourse char
acterzed as Free Trade, the commercial excuses
of each nation reacted upon and stimulated those
-
ready for explosion at the instance of any casual
spark or fortuitOus thunderbOlt. Of course, the
great commercial centers, like New-York, London,
Hamburg, were fearfully shaken and shattered
while nations like France and Russia, which had
adhered to the Protective Policy, were relatively
but lightly affected. But that our own share IN the
general disaster would have been lighter had our
IL 1nso hInk ia
disputes.
Nor has the attribution of the Reyulsion to ex-
cessive issues of Paper Money made any practical
Judgment in the public mind. In the first agonies
of the crisis, it seemed that those whom party
necessity forbade to inveigh against The fatal policy
which had weakened and Frustrated our Home
Manufactures would be compelled to make the
Banks the scapegoat Of their sad mistake and its
consequences. He who read believingly the DEM
ocratc messages, leaders and resolves OF three
months ago, must have supposed that the party
waited impatiently for opportunity to blot the
Banks out of existence sttributDg the prostration
of Commerce and paralysis of Industry mainly II
not wholly to their excessive issues and their con-
sequent inability to continue Specie Payments
Nay: in the critical hour Of our last political
struggle in this State leading Republican journal
Of Democratic anteccdents passed over without
warning to the adverse camp, protesting una
battd devotion to the principles aud objects
of the Republicans, but an overmastering de-
sire TO secure radical reform in Currency aud
Banking. We were sure then that these appear
ances were deceitful-that the Democratic party,
no matter what it might profess on the eve of al
election, would never seriously undertake to sup
plant our Paper Currency by one of Metal, nor
even to wind up those Banks which had clearly
forfeited their charters by suspending Specie
Payments. These convictions are already justified
by results. The Democratic Legislatures of nearly
all the Slave States have already shielded their
Banks in their chronic refusal to fulfill their
promises and have in several instances given them
absolutiOn for several months of prospective insol-
vency. The rest, with hardly an exception, will
follow in the same path. The anti-Bank iulmi.
nations of Mr.. Buchansn's Message will prove
very harmless sort of Summer lightning, not being
responded to by the Democratic majorites
in the two Houses. Practically, therefore,
il il conceded that the Banks did not create the
Revision, though many of them doubtless shared
with the community in the errors which induced It,
They were spokes in the rapidly-revolving wheels;
they were not the mad steeds which mpelled the
giddy revolution. There was hardly ever before so
great proportion Of Specie to Paper Currency in
this country as on the day when the Banks were
constrained to suspend Specie Payment. And,
though there were doubtless illmansged and unduly
expanded Banks, not to speak Of those which had
their origin in fraud, and were essentially expert
ments on popular crcdulity it must in fairness be
admitted that the Banks Of this country, as body,
have weathered the storm Of 1857 with eminent
success. In no other department of business has
ANYTHING like an equal measure of solidity and
recuperatiye power been exhibited. But for
the legislative indugences in Pennsylvania and
certain Southern States, we believe the Banks OF
every portion of the Union would have been as
truly specie-poyins at ths moment as they ever
were.
Nor is the hypothesis of Panic any longer OBJ
truded to account for the revulsion of 1857. That
there ,cas Panic, no one can deny Just there is
always Panic in city weekly decmated by cholera
or yellow fever. But it would be most absurd to
attribute the cholera to the Panic rather than the
Panic to the presence of cholera. Apprehension
doubtless intensified the perils through which we
have recently passed; but it did not create them.
The real causes of our late disasters We're, as we
have already indicated, these:
/. Excessive Trade. 1t is plausiby asserted
that there was in June last one merchant for every
TWENTY-FIVE families in the United States while one
bor -.
large abundance. In other words, four times the