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

cline under abundant crops The decline in
merchandise, and the consequent difficulty Of
borrowing money upon it, compel merchants
| ana manufacturers throughout the country 10
OBTAIN the money necessary for their business
and for replacing the loss on their mefcnan-
disc by selling out all their outside invest ies
ments and securities. The lateness OF bne
fall trade and the delay in moving the crops
| will cause great competition among the rail-
| roads low freights and diminished profits.
! Theprevailing spirit Of caution Will cause many
| of the hollow shams of the street to be tho
roughly investigated and exposed. The dimi-
| nished profits of the merchants reduce the bank
deposits, or, in other words the amount of
money that the banks can lend on stocks
The preference which in times of doubt will
always be given to Governments will likewise
exert depressing influence on railroad and
other securities, and the stock exchange is
likely to see decline that few anticipate, and
that will tend to distribute again some of those
enormous fortunes that excite the jealousy of
Ignorant men, and furnish the stock in trade
OF political demagogues. The almost inevita-
Die decline IN prices OF every single article of
merchandise and of every kind of property is
natures way of equalizing the distribution of
wealth without the aid of Congress or of
strikes or of cooperative societies.
1t is an old story that dear bread makes
more revolutions than the direst oppression.
and progress than liberty itself. Abundant
crops this fall will do as much to reconstruct
the South, to allay the labor excitement to
haTmonize political differences, and to put
down agrarianism, as any number of summer
sessions, or any variety of reconstruction
amendments. Few will object to the negro's
voting if he faithfully helps to hoe the corn,
and the crop yields enough for both master
and man. Who stops to register while the
wheat is yearning for the sickle Will strikes
or cooperative societies bring down the price
OF flour twenty-five per cent. in one month as
natures bounty has doneY Who clamors for
another's acres while in his own field the corn
is growing an inch at night Who cares for
Stanbery's opinion while cotton promises an
old-fashioned crop of three millions of bales
Can the President add single grain to
single ear of wheat! Will Wendell Phillips
fierce philippics add one boil to the cotton
plant Can Congress secure one days fair
weather to the ripening fruit Yet they
think they rule the world From all parts of
our broad land, from the stony hillsides
of New England, made fruitful only by
sturdy Puritan labor and Anglo-Saxon inge-
nuity, from the broad prairies of the West,
where the bounteous soil asks only for seed
corn and the reapers, from the sunny valleys
OF the Central States but recently veXed with
din OF arms, from the broad alluvial bottoms
and dreamy glades of the South, from all
parts alike comes one Joyous shout of plenty,
drowning with unconscious scorn the petty
chickering's and broils of statesmen and politi-
clans as the rolling thunder on the Fourth of
July might drown the ftful rattle of torpedoes
and fire-crackers.
We have, indeed, occasion for rejoicing,
Human wisdom has not yet discovered means
of making war weigh alike heavily on rich and
poor. Human virtue lags even behind human
wisdom. Hence it is not denied that war
has fallen most heavily upon the poor,
that they are most oppressed by the weight
of taxation caused by war. But in addition
to the loss by war they have had to bear the
loss of crops. Nature and man alike have bat
tied against the poor For six long weary
years everything has tended to accumulate
property in the hands of the rich. The men
of the people who, like Senator Wade, are
taught by their vague, untutored instincts
'that property is not equally divided" are
nearer the truth than their opponents think.
But when they seek for the cause of this un-
equal distribution their instincts fail them,
and when in their thoughtlessness they talk of
Congress distributing property more equally"
they simply put their feeble shoulders to the
chariot-wheel of Providence. The laws that
regulate the accumulation or redistribution of
property are made by a mightier power than
that OF Presidents or even president makers.
VI the laws themselves man in his ignorance
has only faint conception; but we do know
that the harvest of each year is one of the in
struments by which they are executed. For
four or five years past the tendency has been
in one direction only, but the wave of accumu-
lation has now spent its force, the wave of re-
distribution has started on its career.