New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-10-01

THE TRUE LESSON IN WALL STREET..
The sinners having wrought all the mischief
they could and abandoned the field, the
preachers have in the natural order OF things
taken possession. We have scores OF 0racles
improving the occasion of the Wall-st. con-
spiracy and collapse, and hundreds of luminous
expositions concerning the lesson there taught.
We propose to add very little to the homlletic
literature of the crisis.
1t is easy enough to draw cheap morals from
the recent events. Plainly there is as little
honor among Gold Gamblers as among thieves.
They use lawyers injunctions to prevent the
payment of honest debts obey the rules of
the Gold Exchange when they make by it, and
repudiate when they lose betray each others
counsels, sell out their confederates and consent
to the ruin of their partners; while they regard
the prostration of business, the distress among
innocent classes, and the destruction OF great
and honorable houses which they have wrought,
with an indifference as callous as if the suf-
ferers were citizens of another planet Plainly
there is absolutely no legitimate basis for the
operations. Houses that had MT thousand
dollars in Gold to bless themselves withal,
bought and sold, during Fridays phrenzy, by
the million transactions reached the enor-
nous aggregate of hundreds of millions, when
all the parties concerned could not have
scraped together tenth of the sum; the
utterly fictitious premium was run up to %.
while the man with thousand dollars OF
actual Gold for sale might search Wall-st.
through without finding counter on which
he could lay it down and take mp instead
fourteen hundred dollars in Greenbacks.
Plainly this business, which exists without
a basis and is conducted with thieves honor,
is nevertheless capable of mastering, under such
combinations as that of last week, the financial
interests of the whole country of reducing
other business to its own level, and converting
the operations of all dealers into gambling.
Such lessons of the panic It'll easy enough
to draw. The tendency to lock the stable door
after the horse is stolen being to speak after the
manner of men, all inseparable and inevitable
trait of our poor humanity. We shall soon have
plenty of legislative hostlers producing their
infallible combination locks. Each lesson will
bring its lock- We shall have efforts to make
dealing in Gold on margin Illegal, efforts to
regulate the premium, efforts to reorganize the
Gold Exchange, a hundred plans with each its
hundred several excellencies Doubtless many
may show some salient features of apparent
merit; but, so far as the end to be attained is
concerned, they are pretty sure to be alike
worthless.
For this. after all, seems to us the true
lesson of last weeks calamity 1.-THE business
of this city, and measurably of the whole
country, must remain at the mercy of COM
binations like the late one until we adopt the
effectual cure and return to specie payments.
There may be palliatives for the disease,
but specie payments afford the only remedy.
Whoever pleads for the continuance of our
present currency, pleads for the continuance of
a state in which the events of last week are at
any time possible. To oppose the rapid appre-
citation of the Public Credit use of the Gold in the
Treasury to pay the Public Debt, preparations for
new loan at low rate of interest, and Re-
sumption, is to favor the perpetuatiOn of
last weeks work as permanent sys-
TEN for the business of the Country.
Meantime there is matter which demands
the immediate attention of Che street. The
operations Of the Gold Exchange are virtually
suspended, yet sales of Gold continue in sums
sufficient to meet the current wants of bust
ness Why may not this system be per-
manent7 Why renew the mischievous Gold
Exchange at ALI The Treasury pays out in
interest say one hundred and twenty-five mil
lions per annum; it collects in Customs say
one hundred and seventy-fve Millions The
accumulation thus caused in the Treasury is
adjusted by Treasury sales, and these and the
shipments of coin to and from New
York, which constantly tend in like manner
to equalize themselves, seem to secure SUM-
Gent movement in Gold. What use is there
for Gold Roomf The Stock Exchange has
certain large basis of actual legitimate bust
ness besides the constant gambling operations
which do so much to bring it into dscredit; but
the Gold Exchange is mere gambling and
nothing else. 1t is not called for by the bust
ness of the street. 1t can be dispensed with
from this time forth, without any actual loss or
much serious inconvenience. The men who par
ticipate in it are gamblers pure and simple.
Why should they have any better position
either in business or social circles than
the keepers Of faro banksf Why
should respectable banking houses encour-
age them, associate with them, or
recognize themf The time is ripe for consid-
eling such questions, and no man who appre-
ciates the business of Wall-st. can hesitate as
Do fl,air