The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-04-09


all this and gives a person who happens to be
in Europe as much and as ready control
over his money in New York as if he were at
home, and that without having to pay bankers
or exchange dealers for handling 1t. We men
ton London and New York by way OF illustra-
ton, but our remarks apply also to other
commercial and financial centres connected by
telegraph.
The time is not far off, probably, when bills
of exchange between this country and Europe,
and even between other parts of the world,
will be as unnecessary as between New York
and Philadelphia. The business in these has
been an immense and a very profitable one to
the bankers and particularly to those of Lon
don. British capitalists have made London
the financial and great exchange centre of the
world and consequently have made all
nations tributary to their wealth. BY skill
full and well established system they keep the
course of exchangein favor of England. II is not
so by accident, but by able management. The
Bank of England and all the great capitalists
as well as the Government, Keep this object
constantly in view; for it is an immense power
and brings vast wealth One of the earliest
and ablest British financiers, Sir Thomas
Gresham, laid down the policy which has been
pursued ever since. He induced Edward the
Sixth to furnish him with the means of turn
NC exchange in favor of London as between
that city and Antwerp. BY the use of a COM
paratively small sum, but by using it every
day secretly and skilfully, he was able in
short space of time to raise the exchange of
London from sixteen shillings Flemish for the
pound sterling to twenty-five shillings. By
this he was enabled to discharge the debt of
hundred and eight thousand pounds which
the King owed at Antwerp. He knew well, as
all British statesmen and tinanciers have
known since, the immense value of having
exchange in favor of England. The same
great man recommended Queen Elizabeth to
depart from the practice of her predeces-
sors in negotiating loans abroad and to
secure them for the capitalists at home, thus
preventing a drain of money from the country
to pay interest, and making her own subjects
more interested in the stability of the Govern
ment But with regard to exchange, whicn the
English have had the wisdom to make somuch
FROM that will soon become in a great measure
a thing of the past. The telegraph, as we have
said, is doing away with that Hereafter it will
not be so much the able management of capi-
tai in one particular locality that will give
control over the exchanges and financial ope-
rations of the rest of the world-that control
of power will be found in the amount and
value of the productions of a country. Eng
land, which has nearly reached the limit of
production, will find by-and-by that her
money-power is gone, notwithstanding her
abundant cheap pauper labor. The United
States, with resources almost boundless, and
more various than those of any other country
and with vast population that is intensely
active and veryinventive, must become shortly
independent of the influence of foreign capi-
tai In word, the old artificial state of
things will have to give way to that which is
real and substantial.
The telegraph is destined to produce a
similar revolution in commerce. Merchants
making shipments of produce or goods used
to wait long time for advices by mail from
their correspondents, and all their calculations
and transactions were made consequently in
accordance with the delay. Now the mer-
chant in Liverpool knows of shipment of
cotton to him at New Orleans the same day it
is made; the merchant at New York knows in
stantly a cargo of merchandise is shipped to
him in Europe, and it will not be long before
the merchants trading in and with China and
India will hear of the rich freights coming to
them even before the vessels have weighed
anchor. OF course their transactions in having
bills discounted and in the conduct of their
business generally will necessarily undergo a
great change. Everything will be quickened
and vivifed; credits and discounts will be
done away with in a great measure, and money
will be turned over three or four times where
it used to be turned over once. The telegraph
will tend to equalize values over all the world.
The numerous intermediate agents who here
tofore have absorbed most of the profits of
commerce will be dispensed with, and the pro-
ducer and consumer will be brought much
nearer each other. Such are some of the eX-
traordinary changes that are about to be
made. 1t may take some time to revolu-
tionize the old established system of business,
but we shall soon begin to see and feel the
change that is inevitable.
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