The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1867-03-29
.sBusfness.v

feet which the policy OF the present
Radical Congress is having upon the
commercial and business interests of the
country. Business, it says, is very
much depressed all over the country
Stacks of goods are stored in the ware.
4 houses and wholesale stores of New
York, and large holders are carrying
along all that they can bear. Prices
are lower than for several years and
tending downward. -
! Many are inquiring why this is sol
Rather they should ask how could it be
avoided under the present state of the
conntryi During the war the waste OF
food and clothing, and other products,
was immense. The demand was great.
At the close OF the war the momentum
of business carried along the high prices.
But aside from this, large amounts OF
goods were sent to the South, and many
of them remain there, packed and un-
sold. The South could not buy. 1t had
10 means. Its people were starving.
The system of labor had been changed.
The late slaves were rowing from town
to town, to large extent a burden
rather than help to society.
As soon as the armies were disbanded
the planters looked about for help and
for means to put in their crops. A little
encouragement then would have work
ed valuable results to the North. Two
good crops Of cotton, or even OF quite
ordinary crops at the high prices of the
past two years, would have brought
four hundred millions of dollars of gold
into the South from Europe, or sterling
exchange, the equal of gold. With
this the South would have purchased
largely of all kinds of goods which they
need; and their crops would have kept
thousand ships upon the seas in the
carrying trade. This would have
! brought more money to. the pockets of
manufacturers than any tariff that
could be devised-for without demand
for their goods, tariffs are useless to the
manufacturers. With two good cotton
crops in the past two years, we should
have prosperity in every branch of bust
ness at this time, instead of depression.
But the wise policy was not pursued.
The Radical plan was to keep the South
out of the Union. Military Govern
ments are Observation-Disclosures"
one after another, have been imposed
till the Southern men have become sat-
isfied that they are not to have peace
and Union AS the Radicals have fire.
quently proclaimed, it has really ap-
peared that the war was to be cOntin-
ued upon that people.
1t was demanded that the Southern
States should abolish slavery. They did
it.
1t was demanded that they should
agree to assist in paying the United
States debt, and to declare it impera-
tive They did it.
1t was demanded that they should
agree not to pay any rebel debt. They
did it.
But Radicalism was not satisfied, and
it kept on making demands, some of
them unreasonable and unjust, and re-
voltingly humiliating.
Everything was unsettled. The Union
was not restored-the object of the war
is still defeated. The South has no as
surance of peace or safety. They knew
not what was coming next, and in the
| uncertainty and even alarm that has
existed, the crops have not been pro-
duced. Many of the sons of planters,
and planters themselves, have remain
ed in Canada, or Brazil, or Mexico, or
Europe. Confscation and punishment
were threatened. They dared not plant
their fields, which might be divided
among the negroes the next month.
They had no confidence i'll a state of
things which promised chaos rather
than settled condition of affairs.
So to-day the South has nothing to
buy with. OF the future she is not con-
fdent. Threatened with continued
war and Military Governments, her
planters are slow to act; and the North
! is beginning to suffer severely.
/ What is needed now, is the assurance
that no rash measures will be forced
upon them; that they may be left in
peace to plant and gather, and sell and
buy; that the North does not hate
them. but desires Union.
The laws are Obeyed all over the
South. No voice or hand is raised
against them. There is less of crime
and violence there than in the Western
States at this time; and the party that
is trying, by tyrannical means, to force
hateful measures and despotic Military
Government upon them, in violation OF
the Constitution, is doing great harm to
the business interests of the North.
More than this. they are destroying the
very foundation of the Government
| established by the patriots or the Revo-
lution-established, too, with all the
lights of past ages and of the history of
all the GOveruments that then existed
and had ever existed. The men who
are trampling upon the principles of
this Government and arc running the
business of this countryas well as the
Government itself, are in no degree ca
pable of repairing the wreck that they
are making.
In these facts we find the cause that
is now depressing the business of the
country, and bearing heavily upon its
industrial pursuits.
Visitors to the Paris Exhibition will
. l,..x- @;n,o Tho door of fha