The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1864-12-10
Gathering Of the Financial
storm.

The eager grasping after riches a a means Of
endowment, display or power has. perhaps, never
been developed in such intense manifestation as
* now witnessed on every hand. In tins city
few men think of being satisfied with moderate
rains. Til. desire is for rapid accumulation
not from patient. plodding, honest industry, and
the oId-fashioned way Of gaining by prudent
husbandry Of small means. The man who only
Laws up a few hundred dollars in q year. by close
application to business and rigid economy Is
altogether too slow for these times. Speculation
is the word. Go il strong and take big chances.
Smash. Dash & Co, open a large mercantile
house ON a fictitious capital, borrow a stock of
goods on sixty or ninety days credit, probably
more, and off this very stock embark IN specula-
tions, experimenting their goods a. security for
outside Investments. They stick III Il margin Oh
a gold speculation, or merchandise, seldom touch
railroad or State securities-thesc TOO low-an
If the market goes up III q week, they make 4
handsome thing by it; if 1t goes down, they lose
their margin, or rather the amount winch the
margin would cover ON their neighborE goods
which thev have obtained ON q ninety days or
six months credit. And So they continue to
operate. If they are lucky dogs, well and good
they are TO be extolled as an example for the
youths of the present generation TO look up TO
and follow. IT,, again, they are u%niueky. they,
of course go under-or rather go up in a balloon,
as it is called here-fail-close up shop--and
their creditors get nary red. The outside
world speak of their failure as the result simply
OF the violent fluctuations in values, or the de-
cline in the premium on gold. 1t would not be
considered strictly within the bounds ofmercantile
propriety 10 style their failure Il swindle. The
exigencics Of the times only caused them u 60
under. And vet day after day, Just such failures
recently have occurred. New York is now tot
tering ON the brink of a financial revulsion, and
all from the. effects of over-speculatiOn on n
fictitious capital which an inflated currency mas
occasioned.
The recent failures of several heavy grain
houses, and leading bankers in Chicago. who had
gone into grain speculatiOns to q large amount,
caused some very extensive failures here, and
shook New York to its financial centre. Wheat
fell so did coffee, as well as all kinds of rroyi-
sions and merchandise, and large holders of
these articles had 10 succumb 10 the pressure.
The decline in the gold premium hurried down
the decline in prices of provisions and merclan-
disc more rapidly than they calculated upon.
Thee purchased extensively TOR Il rise, mostly on
credit, ami mistoOk the tone of the market, as
we'll as being thrown out of their calculation
for Il steady advance. We have now arrived at
that stage in the history of the war, when gold
has become the great indicator of prices-instead
of paper money, a. it used to be-and no man
who bases his wealth ON the latter knows the
value of his Own property for the time being
without consulting the standard Hence the ex-
treme susceptibility of real estate, and more
particularly merchandise, TO the influence of the
gold premium and gold itself is just as sensible
to the influence of the war news as the currency
value of all property is 10 its rise or fall.
Every business man now is as directly interest
ed in depreciating the paper issues of his Gov
ernInent as he is IN enhancing the premium on
gold. 1t is the first instance known in the his
tory of any country where the mercantile and
industrial classes are placed in direct antagonism
to the financial success of their own government.
II is rot from Il want of patriotism that they
place themselves In such hostile attitude, but a
peeuniary interest in their own immediate
advancement in worldly wealth is
more powerful in its influence over their minds
than the policy of any party or the victories of
any army which would bring about Il contrary
result.
Were the rebels to lay down their arms to-mor-
row, or be suppressed next week, it would bring
abOuta financial storm that would overthrow every
mercantile house, every manufacturing establish
ment in the North that had based its wealth
merely on q gold premium and not on gold itself,
md had operated on this fictitious premium in
the belief that il would continue. \ hastv
peace nOw-even with the restoration of the
Union, or by quietly permitting the bogus rebel
government to set up for themselves, and put a
stop to the war-would he more deplCrable TO
the entire country east of the Rocly Mountains
than its continuance with a still further enhanc-
ing debt, until hostilities could be gradually
brought TO a close, and the daily expenditures of
the Government gradually lessened.
People foresee the exhaustion of the rebel
armies, for they conine themselves at present
TO the defensive behind earthworths, and never
venture a pitched battle in the open field. Yet,
with all the accommodating evidences of a speedy
of the rebellion, they are 10th to profit by
the indications To save themselves from an over
whelming disaster to their business.
This autagonism between the fictitious wealth
Of the people and the perpetuity of their own
Government ia one of the strangest anomalies in
our social condition which the war has produced.
Correspondence S. f. Aha.