The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-20
DULL TIMES.
From the N. Y. Tribune.


DULL TIMES.
From the NJ Y. Tribune
There is general complaint of dullness in
trade, which official returns would seem to
contradict. Our weekly imports as, indicated
by the returns of revenue collected, show no
material reduction when compared with those
Of former and of preceding years; nor do we
hear of many furnaces blown out or factories
stopping work. On the other hand, new
stacks, new mills, are almost daily set to
work; our farmers are all busy, and are en-
ploying more labor at the South, and not less
in other quarters, than in former years; so
that, if there be no change for the worse
hereafter, the aggregate product of our ma
tiopal industry in 1870 will exceed that of
any former year.
And yet, the complaint of dull times has
foundation. Our currency has signally ap-
preciated within the past year; consequently,
as measured by legal money, almost every
thing is low-priced. The manufacturer who
bought his stock six to eight months ago,
cannot sell his product for SO many dollars as
it has cost him; hence he reports that he is
losing money. The farmer, who hired labor
wherewith to produce his last crop when gold
was 140 and sold that crop when gold was
but 110, has lost money on his wheat, his
corn, his pork and SO with many others.
The speculator, who bought lots at prices
governed by an inflated currency, cannot
now sell them for SO many dollars as he paid
Cor agreed to pay for them-each dollar being
worth twenty to thirty per cent more than it
was q year ago; SO he swells the chorus of
dull times. And we see no prospect of flush
times until the process of currency assimila-
ton to specie values shall have been per-
fected. Had that been done Gas we think it
might and should have been) in 1865, we
should have gone down to the bedrock at
once, and been the better for it ever since.
One of the worst effects of our present
anomalous position is an almost inevitable
conflict between labor and capital inaccu-
rately so designated. Those who bought
labor last year on the basis of gold at 14O
and sold it's proceeds when gold was 11O@115,
very naturally insist on general reduction
of wages; those who have only labor to sell,
and as naturally want to make the most of it,
do not assent to any such reduction. The
former urge the great reductions which have
been made in the currency prices of flour, of
coal, and of many other necessaries of life;
the latter reply that beef, rents, and many
other elements of living cost nearly or quite
as much as they did one year or two years
ago. In other words the payers of wages
demand concessions which the receivers will
not make; hence strikes and paralysis in
certain departments of industry. We con-
slider the employers generally moderate and
reasonable in their requirements, and advise
the workmen to assent to them we regard
most of their strikes as likely to result in
failure; but they have perfect right to con-
slider us mistaken, or Gf they please) swayed
by class sympathy or personal interest, and
to persist in defying our counsel, on the rea-
sonable assumption that they understand
| their own business far better than we do.
Were the Senates Funding bill this day a
| law we believe all would be changed for the
| better. We would resume our march to specie
payments, and Herewith the steady apprecia-
tion of our paper currency. The authorization
| of the Secretary of the Treasury to fund, at
his discretion, the greenbacks in the new four
per cent. bonds is, in our view, one of the
most important and salutary provisions of the
bill, rendering future Black Fridays impos-
sible. 1t is high time that the greenbacks
should cease to be national lie. "The United
States will pay five dollars to bearer" is a
fraudulent promise unless they are to be paid
at some time in something or other. Let us
have an authentic exposition of this promise,
with practice to match, and our currency will
rest on somewhat like, if not exactly on, the
granite rock of specie redemption. Pass the
Senate bill and the currency premium on
coin can hardly be forced above ten per cent,
and, if put above that point, cannot be kept
there
Until we make some effective provision fol
funding our national debt-ultimately, the
whole of tive shall have ample complaint
of dull times. We live in state of uncer
tainty, of expectation-of course, from hand
to mouth. Few make heavy contracts fol
goods, apprehending an appreciation of cur
rency and consequent reduction of prices
Labor refuses to adapt its wages to a specie
standard, not believing that standard abou
to be attained; capital is reluctant to employ
labor at paper prices, believing that pape
may soon be assimilated to gold; hence
hiatus, a chasm, an interregnum, which it il
the general interest to terminate SO soon a
is practicable.
Meantime, we note with satisfaction
liberal effiux of population from our city
There are more houses and stores to rent il
this city to-day than there were on an
former 20th of April; and they cannot all b
taken this year-at least not before Septem
ber. Many lifelong residents-weary of un
certainty in business and the multiforr
/ anxieties of city life-are finding or maxim
homes in the broad, free country. Ou
suburban villages, especially those located o.
{ railroads, are rapidly filling up and extend
D ing; while many are buying lands in tn
interior, the West, or the South, and intend
y ing henceforth to be done with pavement
: and gas-light and to be summoned froI
2 slunber by.no bell but that which calls t
breakfast. Thousands of families are thu
! seeking or making homes in Kansas, in Mi