New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-02-09


ceding years, varying but trife in any year
from 1924 to $780, In 1888, the Compromise act
was passed. 1t began by its first reduction of
customs rates in 1884, and displayed its full
force in 1885 aud 1886. In these two years, the
imports rose first to $122 100000 in 1885, and
then to $l58, 900 in 1S36-an increase of n
per cent in three years, which was followed by
a reduction of 40 per cent. in tho next two
years In those two years, the sales OF the
public lands went up, in 1885, to $14,700,O0O,
and in 1885, to $24, ,000 the circulation more
than doubled, and the public landsales in
creased to thirteenfold above all precedent,
and fell Immediately thereafter to their old
average, until 1855 brought them up again to
Sf1, 100000, in preparation for the revulsion OF
1857. 1t must not be forgotten, that, so soon as
the protective tariff of 1849 came into opera
ton. beside the reduction to the old standard
in these sales, the imports also fell back to
100000, 900 from $15900O,0OO in 1896, and the
circulation to $s2,OOO0OO from $149,0OO0OO, in
1887.
Here is relation striking, positive, palpable,
and so interlinked with the imports and the
circulation, that an explanation of either must
embrace them all. Do not these inseparable
facts explain themselvesi And what other
solution than this can be offered9 Inadequate
protection induced excess in importations; these
demanded, under our business system. first,
large advances from the banks to meet the
customs duties and payments abroad by the
importers; for the balance of trade would be
against us in proportion to the excess OF I'M
ports. Next, the wholesale dealers must have
credits in keeping with the increase OF their
purchases; then the jobbers of the lesser cities
and, lastly, the retailers all over the country:
the credit system ruling from three months to
year among dealers, and running, In the
main, longer with the consumers; pay day
falling earlier with every grade of merchants,
and requiring greater punctuality than could
be commanded from the last purchaser. Every
one knows that merchants, upon discounted
and accommodation paper, are the favored
customers of the banks, for the reason that the
penalty of suspension and bankruptcy greatly
corroboratcs their credit with money institu-
tons. Banks do not lend on real-estate secu-
rites. Speculative prices do not begin there;
and Che moment that the tide of import sets
In at low prices, the credit Of manufacturers
is shaken. Agricultural lands and products do
not rise till money is cheapened by its abund-
ance. Bank credits must lead in the rise OF
domestic property and products; and what
leads the bank credits, if it be not the demand
made by the dealers in foreign commodities
when they take possession lof the home mar
kets7 These credits, as we have said, are
multiplied at every stage of the subsequent
sales of the imports; and this doubling, treb-
ling, and quadrupling of credits upon the prin-
cipal stock, accounts fully for that expansion
of the circulation whose connection is inyari-
able, both in rise and fall, as we have seen.
But, il any doubt remains about the primal
agency, it is all removed by the working OF
our public land sales in the times when they
were sold for money by the Government.
What but an influx of foreign fabrics could
drive capital and labor from the Eastern to
the Western States and Territories in sudden
and enormous OVERFLOW Low tariff duties,
flood of goods from abroad, and rush from
the manufacturing States to the Praires, work
their effects upon the Treasury first producing
a gorge Of the national fund, then national
bankruptcy straightway. This is the chain of
sequences and thus the first link is found in
the failure of our tariffs to preserve the labor
of tho nation from invasion. Senator FentOn
may be, or he may not be, right about the
"relaton of the volume and value of the
currency" but he is not right in tracing the
imports to the currency of the country. There
are enough of other agencies at work, and they
are abundantly sufficient to explain the excess
of imports from which we are now suffering
in every department of domestic industry, and
in none so much as in the farming interest
which, curiously enough, is at once calling for
an expansion of bank money and reduction
of the tariff rates.
One word more upon our present enormous
imports from Europe. In the last three and a
half years, we have taken about thousand
millions worth. and they have taken our bonds
to the like amount at nominal value for the
price of the goods Those bonds they have at
rates ranging from say 70 to "a cents on the
dollar; at the highest, about even with the
British consols, and the general rate of three
per cent funds in those parts of Europe which
supply the great bulk of our imports. In cur
rent productive value, our six per cents are
worth about one hundred and eighty for the
hundred. Need we look any further for the cause
of the great influx of goods which are charged
with duties that do not in fact approach 80
per cent. i'm effective averagesq The stupid
general average which puts the rate above 40
per cent. under the present tariff, when stripped
of the enormous rates upon tea, coffee, tobacco,
and sugar, which Europe does not produce.
would show that our manufactures in general
are not covered by quite 40 per cent But our
bonds are now paying to the foreign holder
the normal European interest upon one humid
red and eighty dollars for every hundred that
they cost him. He can afford to send his goods
here under an impost charge of less than forty
unon the hundred