The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-07-25
Our Industrial Prospect.


solicit the grave attention of our readers to
the future that opens before them, whether
they be producers or exchangers of wealth.
During the last fortnight, about five mill
lions of dollars in specie were exported-at
least double the product of our mines and
washings during that time. No special de-
mand compelled this eflux, and it seems pro-
bable that, should our currency and our tariff
remain substantially as now, we shall con
tinue to export specie nearly or quite as fast
as we produce it for the next generation. In
other words:-We shall rapidly exhaust the
-Vnineral treasures of our soil to fill the Golfers
of Europe and Asia, without reserving any
considerable portion of the product for our
selves.
=, Now we have no superstitious, idolatrous
regard for gold and silver. We value them
only as a kind of wealth which endures. We
grow each year several hundred of millions
worth Of grass, grain, fruits, vegetables; but
the next year sees the last of them, and it is
thenceforth as though they had never been.
But one hundred millions of gold produced
and not exported is mainly so much added to
our abiding wealth--to the wealth of our
children and their children. Hence, we cannot
agree with those who delight to see poor men
lavish and rich men Ostentatious and prodigal.
Hence, we deprecate the exchange of our hard
won specie for laces, gewgaws, and frippery
that "perish in the using.' For our children's
Children's sake we wish the duties on imported
metals, wares, fabrics, and all luxuries were
doubled; in part because we would largely
and rapidly expand and diversity our home
industry, but in part also because we would
diminish our imports and save the gold and
the bonds which are continually leaving us, to
swell the wealth of Europe while impoverish-
ing and embarrassing our posterity.
Our crops, on the whole, promise well,
though the season has thus far been exception
ally rainy, and great losses have been expert
enced from inundatons. We shall have more
than average yields of grass and grain, and
1--WE judge a fair crop of cotton. But last
years cotton brought prices far below the
general expectation of planters; while nearly
everything we send abroad now rules lower
than it did year ago. We shall probably
receive less by twenty per cent. for our ex-
ported produce of 1867 than for that of 1866.
Is it not plain, therefore, that we ought
systematically to take in sail--to live more
frugary, pay debts, instead of mourning
them, import less, spend less Ought we not
to-day to be recalling and redeeming from
Europe the bonds which, in the agony of our
great struggle, we sent thither for sale in
stead of the produce that we could not spare
How long can we go on exporting at once
gold and bonds-the wealth of the present
and the wealth that our children must pro-
duceS Our debt to Europe does not call on
us for a fraction less than sixty millions of
dollars per annum as interest alone. That is
to say, if we are never to pay Europe our
present debt, we must send her sixty mil
lions per annum more than the cost of our
imports in order to pay the interest on what
we owe her. While our national existence
was at stake, we could think only of preserv-
ing it; but now that we have peace, should we
not resolve on and combine to secure prompt
arrest of the policy which is stripping us of
specie and sinking us deeper and deeper in
debt
Two months after the overthrow of the Re-
bellion, the premium on gold-measuring the
depreciation of our paper currency-ranged
from 70 to 30 per cent. Our bank credits were
far less expanded, our aggregate OF personal
Indebtedness was much less than now, and
We might have resumed specie payments with
scarcely an effort and no serious convulsion.
To-day, the premium on gold hovers about
40, and tends palpably upward. Our last
bank returns show an increase of loans and
decrease of specie. The Stock Market proves
that the knowing ones look for still further
imitation and debasement of the currency. 1t
is whispered in speculative circles that the
Secretary of the Treasury is at length "all
right''-that he will cancel and burn no more
greenbacks, and will redeem no interest-bear-
ing debt, save under legal compulsion-all in
the interest of the National banks, which, it
is represented, cannot abide any further con-
traction, but prefer to increase their loans and
issues. We do not know what may be the
fact; we do know that the whole kite-fying
crew are in clover, and act as though they felt
sure that the Secretary had been "seen."
And it is certain that we hear from him no
new utterances having the sterling ring of the
Fort Wayne speech of two years ago.
One voice can be heard but little way at
best. The influence that would postpone
resumption indefinitely while workingisteadily
and rapidly the bellows of imitation, would
Seem for the time uppermost in Congress- in
the Treasury, in back parlors, and in business
circles. We can but protest and wait. Yet
when we are told that the Bank of England
did not return to specie payment till six or
seven years after the close of the great Napo-
leOnic wars, we can respond that we see in
operation all around us the influences that
produced that delay-that those who profit by
our irredeemable currency never did and
never will voluntarily return to solvency and
responsibility. To make your own note and
pass 1t of for money, promising only to redeem
1t when required in the note of some one else
who does not redeem at ALL is the Paradise of
high-hying bankers and speculators but we
cannot see how it cOnduces to the well-being
OF the masses or to general, enduring pros
perity. POWeress to reverse we simply pro-
test, and bide our time.
General Grant as the Executor OF the
Recommendation Law.
From Le Times.
The authority Of which Congress has de-