The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1866-07-11

tensions and see the sandy foundation
on which they stand.
First. The home demand for labor
already exceeds the supply. Ihere Is
abundance of work to be found 1or
half million more able bodied men lSI
if the men can be found who are will
ing to work. We do not include In
| this assertion the swarms OF young
men who have spent a few weeks in
commercial colleges and are loafng
about cities and towns in search of
. genteel employment, such as clerk
ing and bookkeeping. But we assert
that all men who are willing to work
with their hands at farming, lumber
ing. mining, mechanism, or as common
laborers, can find abundance of en-
ployment at high wages. Therefore,
the pretext of the prohibitionists that
they want to furnish more employ
ment for home labor, is sheer hum
bug. Their real purpose is not quite
so innocent or honest.
The second pretext is, that they
want to stop the expectation of gold
from this country. This is more abb
surd than the other. What is it that
has taken forty millions of gold out
of the United States during the past
six weeks? 1t is not the importation
of foreign goods, but the importation
of United States bonds that carried
away our gold by the ship load. On
the first of May we had five hundred
millions of Federal bonds in Europe,
nearly half of which was held by
bankers and brokers for sale and spec
ulation Their price had steadily adj
vanced until they reached seventy
seven cents on the dollar, and gold
had fallen in this country to 125.
q All at once great financial panic
broke out in England, (where $780,
100000 of our bonds were held by
speculators,) smashing numerous
banks, rendering insolvent hundreds
of merchants and commercial com
panies, and compelling the great fnan-
cial regulator, the Bank of England,
to ask the Government the right to
suspend specie payment. And to add
to the alarm and excitement, ire
mendous European war was ON the
eve of breaking out. What was the
result? Why's the British holders of
our bonds sent them home by the
cord, in order to exhicate themselves
from their embarrassments Their
own banks having refused to pay spe-
Gle, they checked on Uncle Sam for
sixty or seventy millions on sight. A
part was paid in cotton, and forty odd
millions of coin were RENTED to Lon
don in payment for our bOnds-not
goods, remember. This prompt re-
mittance of gold arrested the financial
panic in England, enabled capitalists
and banks to resume business, re-
stored confidence, stopped the fall in
the price of our securities, and pre-
vented the further return of our
bonds. Having got over their crisis,
the British are beginning to buy back
the very bonds they sold in a fright,
at an advance. Last week the ex-
portation of coin to Europe was less
than half a million of dollars. Such
was the cause of the recent heavy ex-
portation. of gold. Now let us ask the
prOhibitory .monomaniaes how they
propose to apply a tariff to prevent
our bonds from coming home for sale
in time of panics in. Europe? Do
they propose to levy an import duty
on the returning bonds? or, do they
propose to forbid European holders
to send them back to this country?
We all recollect Thad. Stevens's ia
nous bill to prevent Wall Street from
specializing in stocks, and how it
worked Let us have no similar
.quackery with the tariff. a-aa
Third. But we are told that the
main object of the prohibitionists is
to stop the importation of foreign
goods. But why should that be done?
Have not the people the right to buy
those goods if they want them, and
are able to pay for them? During the
past four months seventy million dol
lars worth of cotton alone have been
exported abroad and exchanged for
goods, Shall our people be forbidden
to sell their surplus cotton and take
their pay in merchandise? Is this
free country, or is it despotism.
ruled over by a Japanese Tycoon?
Every dollars worth of foreign goods
purchased puts .ft1y cents into the
National Treasury. Every dollars
worth of imports stopped by prohibi-
tory duties keeps half dollar out of
the treasury; or, in effect, takes it out.
To arrest the purchase of a hundred
million dollars worth Of foreign goods
is to deprive the Government of fifty
millions of revenue, and to prevent
the sale of one hundred millions of
our surplus products to foreign coun.
tries, as they cannot buy from us, unaA
less we buy from them. Any fool
ought to know that much at least.
Can the Government afford this
loss? IF it can then it is plainly the
duty of Congress to repeal sixty mill
ions of internal taxation. Toreduce
the revenue fifty to seventy millions
by means of prohibitory imposts,
while the people are bled by internal
! taxes until they stagger from exhaus-
ton, is a species of craftsmanship that
should consign such Legislators to