The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1868-08-07
COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAb.
The money Market.


1t is apparent to all attentive observ-
ers of the weekly statements of the
banks in the large cities that
there is a steady initiation of bank
credits. There is all the time tenden-
cY to expansion. Since the week end
ing with the I'd of May last, the banks
of this city have increased their item OF
loans from S53 .3SS, ,74O to S54, ,S41, ,163, be-
ing an increase of 81 ,O07, ,423; their legal
tender notes from Sl4. .99O, 1882 to Sl7, ,402,-
176, being an increase of S2,4l1 ,S45,
and their deposits from SS5, los. .937 to
$40, ,425 ,671, being an increase of So, 3d.
734. The specie in the same time has
decreased from 1914, 1856 to SlS7, ,2SI, a
loss OF $127,0S5. The circulation re-
mains all the time nearly steady at
about ten millions six hundred and
twenty-five thousand dollars. The
New York and the Boston banks are
moving steadily, and even more large
ly in the same direction; at New 4ork
the expansion is told in large amounts.
Since the 4th of June last the loan item
there has increased 500 $40, ,366; the
legal tenders SI1, ,526, $50, and the depos-
its S4l, ,O32, ,OSl. The specie has in
crsased there about seven and three
quarter millions. The circulation was
in the main unchanged. This,
too, is at time when the
business OF the country is depressed to
the verge of revulsion. Trade in the
large cities, and especially the retail
trade, was never more stagnant. Al
most daily do we meet in our walks
additions to the many placards TO
let" posted along all our principal
thoroughfares. Our trades people say
their reduced business does not warrant
the payment of such rents as are de-
manded, and the very high tSxes and
enormous cost of building and charges
for improvements and repairs of pro.
NSNE1 FNfI
rents without direct loss TO owners.
Real estate, on an average, does not pay
at present rents, after deducting the
taxes and other charges TO which II 1s
subjected, nearly so well as capital in
vested in Government, State, and City
loans, and the more reliable stock secu-
rites. The expansion of bank credits
tends to the maintenance of high prices
and operates as the chief obstruction to
return to specie payments. In this
view the bank returns are important
matters of observation. The nnanclal
schemes of individuals, however high
in place, or of Congress, are all fiddle
faddle," so long as the banks continue
to expand without a corresponding
increase OF the products of labor. Debt
aud taxation are practical, substantial
things, and cannot be whistled out OF
existence. The only scheme of finance,
that we ever found that worked satis-
very simple rule of making sure that
the annual expenditures should be kept
safely within the annual income. This
rule applies with equal force to Gov
ernments and to individuals. The
country Is now groaniDg under an un.
due weight of taxation, and one OF the
means of reducing 1t is contraction.
Not sudden and violent, but slowly and
surely. Contraction of bank credits
aud of all expenditures, public and in
dividual. This, followed by repose in
the public mind, and by year or two
of good crops, as is now promised, and
the business of the country will be sure
to revive, when the way will be clear
for simple and fixed policy for pay
ing the National debt. 1t must be re-
members that the taxes paid by the
people are the only reliance of the Gov
ernment, and il the ability of the peo-
pie to pay these taxes is interfered
with by prices maintained, from what
ever cause, at a range 30 high as to
restrict labor and enterprise, we have
not reached the eliminating point at
which the country may be supposed TO
be returning to a more healthtul con-
dition, Through the observance of a
more rigid economy will the true fnan-
cial policy of the nation develop itself.
It need not be hunted for. One of the
effects thus far of this bank expansion,
which has been going steadily on for
the last two years, has been huctua-
tions in the prices of leading stocks of
about so per cent, and present quota
tions in many instances are higher now
than they have ever been before. This
is mainly attributable TO bank expan-
sion, and on the principle that "what
goes up must come down." bank con-
traction from whatever cause 1t may
arise, will some time or other, annihi-
late the high prices created by bank ex-
pansion. Notwithstanding all the talk
at Washington, of theories for reaching
specie payments, the banks have done,
invoIuntarily, perhaps, just what they
did in s36-3T-expand their loans and
stimulate speculation-with this differ
ence now, the speculation is almost
wholly in stock securities OF one kind
or another, instead of being diffused as
then through all kinds of business all
over the country. The important ques-
tion for those involved In stocks is, how
near the end is this bank exoansion,
and what is to Immediately follow it 2
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