Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1858-01-02
Improvement i'm Trade.

~" bnS"a ~ "o'aAhS futStiy. iHo
Banks here are strong in specie. The
money is not all their own, but mainly the
property of he'll depositors, who since the
October suspension have collected aud re-
turned twenty-five million dollars to bank,
raising the line of uudrawn deposits as
high as it stood this time last year. The
collections from the interior of the country
have been eh ehy in specie, so that the
banks now hold TWENTY. EIGHT MILLION
idollars in Gold, as against $500 on the
day of suspension. The actual inherent
strength and debt-paying capability Of the
country have supplied the difference, aided
as these have been by the timely disburse-
ment of sl2, OOO,0 600 from the repositories
of the Federal Treasury.
1t is not Bank management, or Bank
policy, that has enabled New York and
New England to recover their position SO
promptly. The truth is, that they Ought
never so far to have lost it as to suspend
specie payments, and would not in New
England, or in the interior of this State !;
bad some few of the leading New York
City Banks behaved as they ought to have
done in the emergency. But without GO
ing back to the origin of the cause, it is
sufficient to know that it no longer exists
as a hindrance to the Regular operation
and improvement Of credit and trade
These have been set right, and the sub
l%stantial wealth of the country vindicatec,
in less time than the Bank required to
turn the pressure into a + panic. ,
The evidence of Improvement in general
trade have, perhaps, Zen slow to manifest
themselves, outside the accumulation Of
gold in tank. But now that this accumu-
lation has been turned to practical account,
and that the Banks have resumed pay
nents in full, the country viii. not look in
VAIN for substantial signs of the return of
trade, both foreign and internal, to its ac-
custoned channels. The new year will
fully inaugurate the better time which has
alreall dawned upon commercial credit
and mutual confidence. The conviction
grows stronger every day that much, if not
most of the troubles which have shaken
these essential elements of business pros
perity, ought not to have taken place, and
that they were the result, in good part, of
the false impression, industriously and for
months before propagated in sspar:icular
Quarters, that revulsion and panic were
boand to GENE together.
An attempt, we find, is making to check
the present strong tendency to improve
ment, by educating the public to believe
that resumption is premature, and the
country still a bankrupt. But no lasting
harm can come of this, however the dis
%cussion is to be regretted. There is a lack
of principle, as well as the abnegation of
consistency, in first advocating a return to-
specie payments because Of the plethora
Of gold in Bank. as some of our neighbors
have done and then sounding the alarm
that the West and South are not prepared
for it; that they will cease to pay their
debts in New York, with either produce
or gold, but, on the contrary, draw Gold
from as without an equivalent. Besides
the material capital of land has already
asserted itself. The evidences have COME
and are now coming from the west in the
shape Of gold and grain. They are mani
tested from the south in the way of cotton
export, now as active as it was this time
last year. They are beginning to be felt
in the East by the reopening of a number
of the suspended mills and factories.-
They are slowly, but surely, reported from
the great Middle States, where prepara-
tions are going forward to put the Banks
of Philadelphia, Baltimore and Richmond
onee more on a specie basis. These move
ments are not forced, not premature, not
the result of mere bank machinery; but
the certain aud reliable proofs that the
basis of the national prosperity remain
sound in all their youth, vigor and integri>-
ty.-EN. Y. Tribune.