The Portland daily press., 1865-10-28

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high prices, with the idea that 1t is one OF
the burdens laid upon us by war lor the
national defence. 1t is now seen that though
high prices have followed the war, they are
dine to the fact that we were not wise enough
TO adapt a system of national finance to
state of war. The question is purely COM
mercal one. rf
1t is appalling to look round and see what
powerful interests there are adverse to return
ing to specie values. In the first place the
government itself has not the interest it had
last year in the question. When it was spend
ing three millions day to carry on wal "
had an interest that -four, and pork, anu Diailk-
cts, and shoes, and iron and hay, should De
cheap. Now it has no expenditures OF any
considerable amount to make. 1t matters not
how cbean its money is, so long as it passes to
nav its soldiers, pensioners, public servants and
creditors. The plentier currency is, the cas-
Ter and with less murmur people pay taxes.
The banks do not want return to specie
values because it win become unsafe to circu-
late bills, which they may be called upon to
redeem, and less profitable to loan only the
money they have. The forestallers co not
desire it, because it will deprive them of the
immense profits for which they have played
their bold game. and even the honest trader
with chance to pass along to his customer
the extortidn that has been practiced upon
himself, is rather disposed to let the coil un-
wind itself.
When, soon after the close Of the war gold
dropped down to 1.28, and other values in a
still greater proportion, the fear was that spe-
Gle payments were coming uponSus SO soon
that merchants would fail, and the business of
the country would be paralyzed. One part Of
this fear was that the men who had risen with
the rising market while. we demonstrated tbe
article did not cost You one half that price
on the pretence that by and by they must tall
with the falling market, when the time came
should be obliged to keep their word and
should not be allowed to make profit on the
up and down grade too. Perhaps business
would have been paralyzed for three months,
but the season had been wonderfully produc-
tive, the people were, as never before, free
from debt, and romises of gainful business in
the North, in the West and South, invited en-
terprise and industry as never before. We
should have passed the crisis long before now,
and have been ready to enter steadily upon
a solid structure of real and generally difused
wealth l5S& III GFl
Now the fear is that we are not to get spe-
Gle payments at all. Peace, and the complete
surrender of the rebel States to the Union
were pretty hard facts for the bulls of the
stock exchange to trade upon, but there was
so large crowd that preferred shadow to sub
stance, the show and name Of wealth, to
wealth, that they at last headed off the re-
treating columns of gold and turned them
back till they stand stiffly at 1.46, and threat
en- advance rather than recession. Paper
money was made to flow in and fill up the
hiatus; pay day was indefinitely postponed.
The daily gambling in gold was re-established,
and the scale of prices trembled awhile in the
balance and then rose and rose at the dicta-
ton of the speculator, who found that though
great war was good thing to gamble upon,
he had a trick or two left even after the war
had failed him, and after he had lost in the
United States government his chief customer
and dupe.
This was the gradual method of returning
to specie payments This was the conserv-
alive policy, fatal and destructive as usual.
From it, results, not man to do an hours
work saving wood, because the man, who
would have done it, has no house to live in;
nobody win build him house because me-
chanic's wages and building materials are so
high that when built it will not rent for two
per cent of its cost. We venture to surmise
that New England to-day requires one new
dwelling house for every 100 of its population.
The West requires larger and the South
twice as large proportion. Manufactures of
every kind Of goods that skill and labor can
create, are required in every part of the North
to meet the high prices resulting from the nee
essary tariff, and to supply our population
never before so well able to buy, reinforced
as it is to be, first by tremendous immigra-
ton from Europe, second by four millions of
slaves, changed from cattle, consuming
pounded corn and negro cloth, to free labor
ers, purchasing all the commodities of human
consumption at the shops of the traders
Then all our transportation is evidently mad
equate to carry the productions we now raise
to the hands of the people who consume them
We need more ships, more steamboats,, more
rails and rail cars. IS ha ,ac
Why can we not enter at once upon this
vast industry? Simply because we have not,
and every prudent man feels that we have not,
safe financial basis to start upon Let the
capitalists in Maine undertake this winter to
build six thousand houses, judiciously distrib-
uted through our more thriving towns
About what would be the price oftimber,
bricks, paint, and mechanics wages in one
fortnight after starting the projectP So every
where, aggravate the present fictitious values
by any general and permanent demand, and
prices would defy all calculation. We can not
go from a walk into run, but must come first
to a dead halt and take a fair start. We must
do as the Legislature has compelled railroad
managers to do at certain dangerous crossings,
bring the train to, a full stop, then Gdoance
'"eJHeJ UtO OCsSs Auuob DC
Worseibefore they are better. The sooner we
stop, the less the shock-the sooner and the
speedler we can go on safely. We cannot do
business safely upon a mere paper currency,
with no security for its present redemption
and no check upon its unlimited issue.
The national currency system is good sys-
tenn, safe system, because it has its checks
npou over-issue and implies specie payments;
but the National bank system and the State
bank systematic State bank system skulking
under its National privileges, to violate the
restrictions imposed upon us by the State
with no promise Of any definite future specie
payments, and no limit imposed to the issue of
its promises to pay, is terribly oppressive
nuisance. ~
Because the laws against counterfeiting do
not go into effect till next July, shall we drive