The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1869-01-05
Financial Condition of tho Country.
The Washington correspondent Of t.l

The Washington correspondent of The
New York Express writes:
Letters from the West state that the strin.
gency in commercial circles there is greater
than 1T has been since 1S57-that tho coun-
try is overstocked with goods and that the
farmers refuse to send their grain to mar
ket. IN consequence of the decline in prices
since 1867
At the South, tue aspect is rather more
cheerful. The high price of cotton will put
$2oO, 600, 600, for that product alone, into
the pockets of the Reconstructed" of that
section, to say nothing Of large amounts for
tobacco IN Virginia, North Carolina, Mary
land, Missouri and Kentucky, and for wheat
and corn in the same States and in Georgia
and tennessee. The whole value of the
surplus crops of the South this year cannot
be less than $500. 100000. of which proba-
bly, SlOO, OOO, 600 are paid to the negroes in
the shape of wages, and $50. 1000, 900 more
in the shape of food
Another year of equal prosperity would
put the South i'll 4 comparatively sound
condition, although, of course, there are
ana must be for many years numerous cases
OF individual suffering-as of persons in
advanced life, totally ruined by the war.
their houses and furniture DESTROYED. and
all their investments of money completely
worthless. When we consider that the
accumulated savings of 200 years have been
destroyed at the Sodth, we cannot cease to
wonder that her recuperaticn should be as
rapid as it is.
OF the immense importation of foreign
goods, cloths, silks velvets, laces, ;ewelry,
vines and iothcr costly merchandise, the
South now takes comparatively little. Her
consumption is mainly confined to the
necessarIes of life, and will be for some
hnr l.. ~
be more rapid. The Southern people, with
few exceptions, never were luxurious peo-
ple IN the sense that the New Workers and
the Parisians are. They cherished, for the
most part, the homely virtues of their an
cestors. and lived we'll upon the produce of
their fields, their forests and their rivers
content with roomy houses, wood.fres and
old-fashioned furniture. Hence, in their
present depressed condition, they are more
contented than stranger would suppose it
possible for them to be. We hear of few
suicides there, and the number Of insane
persons IN Virginia is only half the number
In Maine, regard being had to population.
In It's best days, there was very little
money in circulation in the South. Now
there is still less. In the commercial panic
which seems to be approaching, the South
Will therefore suffer less than the North
from any contraction of the currency that
may precede the restoration to prosperity.
In the South, there are no real estate specu
latlons, even in the environs of the cities;
no artificial values given to town lots or
embryo Palmyras or Babylons Festina
lente Is eminently the rule there, so far as
real estate is concerned. They are not a
gregarious people. but love elbow room
above everything. Cities they regard as
necessary evils, and as such not to be en-
couraged unduly beyond moderate dimen-
SONS. For the greater the city the greater
the evil.
1t is very evident that business at the
North is overdone; that there are too many
non-pfoducers there-too many merchants,
loo many traders, too many agents, too
many lawyers, too many doctors, too many
persons, in short, who Stand merely as in.
termediarles between the producer and the
Consumer. One of the New York journals
estimates that there arc 200, 900 people out
of work within sight of the spire of Trinity
Church. Within an equal distance of the
State House at Boston there are doubtless
5o, 0OO more, and another $4,000 in the inte-
rlor OF New England. Most of these un-
fortunate persons are anxious for employ
ment, but cannot obtain it, Even the high
tariff, which so enriches the great manufac-
turers, does not put q morsel of bread or an
ounce OF meat into their mouths
What visible outlet to all this surplus
labor is afforded, unless at the South? The
west, for the present, is pretty we'll filed
up with laborers Of all descriptions, and
thousands there are out of work. The
South, then, is the only vacant field easily
accessible on this continent for the unem-
pioyed masses at the North