The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-07-16

money mNEAtL-Ine SPECULATIVE
Rise In stocks.
Fyonu ne Times.
The payment of twenty-one millions of cur
rencyfrom the treasury yesterday is relied upon
ps fresh assurance of speculative activity
The plethorio condition OF the city banks has
already driven up the prices of all securities.
and with the increased ease which the Trea.
sury disbursements will occasion will probably
come more buoyancy-or ballooning-o stock.
Wall street, in fact, appears to be in the midst
Of one of its periods of felicity, and those who
are thoughtless enough to regard its prosperity
as sign of national well-doing may possibly
congratulate themselves upon the advent of a
new era Of riches.
Il is hardly necessary to put on record
warning against delusion so palpable as that
on which Wall street builds its happiness. So
far from being a matter of exultatiOn, the ex-
traordinary ease which distinguishes the
money market is one of the worst symptoms of
our financial position and of the stagnation
under which the industry of the country suf-
fers. The primary cause of the abundance of
currency is the inability of its owners to find
profitable use for it in the legitimate channels
Of industry and business. Manufacturing en-
terprise is at a stand-still. Trade is dull. And
though great expectations prevail in reference
TO the harvest, it must be remembered that the
labor of the Southern Southern States is dis
organized, and that the failure to reconstruct
their levees involves great injury to some of
their most important crops. These oircum-
stances explain the flow of capital to Wall
street. But for them it would have beneficial
employment in the direction of material pro-
ductiyeness. Its idleness is a sign of evil
days. and no amount of speculation in stocks
can make it otherwise.
The case is rendered worse by the oonnec-
lion that exists between the over-abundance of
currency and the recent modification of Mr..
McCulloch's financial policy. The announce
ment that the progress of reducing the public
debt is likely to be stayed, and that for time
at least the contraction of the currency is to
be suspended, operated like charm upon the
speculative fraternity. To them it was a
pledge of renewed vitality. To all besides it
was equivalent to confession that the de-
pressed state of the country forbids the pro-
secution of measures that are essential to its
safety. Not to reduce the debt is to proclaim
a diminutiOn of revenue, which again is a GER
tain indication that business is unprosperous.
And pause in the contraction of the currency
implies as we'll the diseased condition of ma
tional finance as the prolonged suffering which
attends imitation. 1t is clear that were we
marching steadily towards the resumption of
oPSOAO OuiAOhOJ WOuiO NV dOOulllu-
late in bank vaults at the present rate. From
which it follows that the renewed speculation
in stocks is the result of national misfortune,
not of national wealth.
On what tenable ground, then, can it be con-
tended that the recent rise in the prices of
stocks is in any manner connected with i'm
proved valuesl The railroads, for example,
can only prosper when the country is prosper
GUS. When trade and industry are active,
railroads fhriua. Nuhar hoth
railroads must suffer. The causes which con-
tribute to ease in the money market are, pro-
perly speaking, reasons for a decline in stocks,
so that the advances we are called to chronicle
are the product of speculation merely, not of
any bona tide appreciation of value