The New York herald., 1870-02-25

Gold declined yesterday to 1i6s ION
Change" and. including the difference Of
exchange, our national securities advanced in
London to a point within one-half Of one per
cent Of the gold dollar What does this sig
Nifty? IL signifies that we are rapidly
| approaching that great consummation OF the
| specie standard with our paper money 80 per-
picking to our statesmen, politicians and finan-
ciers, and so devoutly wished by all parties and
all classes Of our people. II signides too, an
approaching financial crisis, involving recon-
| struction OF all the business affairs Of the
country in all their details and ramifications,
public and private corporations, companies
and individuals, employers and employees,
high and low, rich and poor, capital and
labor, producers and consumers, on a lower
scale Of prices
| Our shopkeepers for months past have been
marking down" their goods with the decline
in gold, and have been and are underselling
each other. They are quick to note the
| changes in the financial sky. Country farms,
town lots and houses have been coming down,
and their natural and inevitable tendency is
downward. Stocks are falling, the supplies OF
labor are increasing beyond the active demand,
and employees are vainly struggling under
tho new order Of things to maintain their war
prices. From the unsettled and precarious
situation of the political affairs of Europe capi-
tai in that quarter for several years past has
been timid, and is now. The coin in the
banks of England and France has been ac-
cumulating from week TO week by thousands
or millions for many months, the last weeks
additions to the Bank Of France being nine
| million five hundred thousand francs. At the
same time European capitalists have been
casting about for employment for their money,
and have been seizing upon United States
securities, Turkish, Egyptian and Russian
loans, and American railroads. and all sorts of
| African, Asiatic and American enterprises, as
| comparatively safe investments but stih there
is steady increase OF idle European capital
with the general and widening depression in
| manufactures and trade and the general i'm
preston of political insecurity.
Here we have that secret, that financial bal
ance Of power Overlooked by our calculating
| financiers and short-sighted politicians) which
has brought us SO Unexpectedly and so
| strangely to the verge of the specie standard
| Of payments. The unsettled political affairs of
| Europe have been the salvation of our national
securities. From this general cause our gov
ernment bonds in the European financial cities
have risen to valuation which otherwise they
never could have reached, although the gold
and debt paying policy Of General Grants adj
| ministraton has contributed much to the pre-
sent European demand for our fve-twenties
and ten-iorties.
| Here, we say, is a powerful agency which
has been and is working to bring us to the
specie standard, and to the confusion of all the
| calculations Of our inancicrs and politicians.
| And here the combined influences of the press,
steam and the telegraph may be partly COM
| pretended. Through these instrumentaties
| the wealth, the resources aud financial capa-
biIties of the United States are beginning to
| be properly understood all over Europe. II is
said, too, the other side, that the late legal
tender decision of our Supreme Court which
practically does not amount to much, has i'm
mensely contributed to the restoration of
European confidence in our government bonds
Atall events, it is now apparent that if Congress
will only refrain from any attempts TO improve
our financial condition by such tinkering ex-
periments as those proposed in the increase of
our paper money circulation by hundreds of
millions, the laws of trade will carry us
through the approaching crisis without any
serious convulsion.
As natural reaction from the restraints
under which capital has been rendered for
several years so inactive in Europe, an epi-
demic of speculation is spprehended. With
us, however, this epidemic comes with paper
money imitation like that Of 1886, and is
followed by disastrous collapse like that of
1887. A paper money imitation is, therefore,
the great danger to be avoided, and we are
glad to see this opinion sustained in the vote
of the United States Senate yesterday on this
important question The resolution Of Senator
Williams which was adopted without
division, covers the ground, and especially
upon this point, that to increase our irredeem-
able paper currency at this time would be to
loSber auu encourage tnc spitlt vi specuM-
ton, and to aggravate the evils produced by
frequent and sudden fluctuations Of values
This declaration from the Senate reassures us
against an epidemic Of speculation.
We have had our speculative carnival We
have been fighting our way out of it ever since
| the close of the war. We are now within
| sight of land, and, do the best we may, there
will be some breakages and losses as we touch
the shore. We must shorten SAIL retrench
and reduce in everything and on every side.
We must prepare, from the wealthiest capi-
talist to the poorest laborer, from the national
government to the weakest private corpora
ton or company or employer, for the great
change that is at hand in our financial and
business affairs. Lands, lots, houses, stocks,