Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-12-12
THE OUTLOOK.
commercial and Industrial Recovery.


Commercial and Industrial Recovery.
From the New York Bulletin, Dec. o.
Much as the condition of CONNER
cial affairs has improved within the last
month, yet the values of commodities
are far from having recovered from the
decline which occurred during the pam
ic. The crisis came at the height of
the fall trade, and has consequently in
terfered, to large extent, with the or
binary home demand for all kinds Of
commodities. Producers had anticipa-
ted healthy seasons trade, and had
provided supplies accordingly; and, I'M
der the circumstances of diminished
consumption, there is a consequent
pressure of supply, which tends to keep
down prices-this being. especially true
of products which have only home
market, while it is less so of those
which are at the same time exportable.
Considering the arrangement of our
financial machinery and the utter pros
tration of credit which at one time pre-
vailed, the marvel is that prices did not
fall much lower. On a few articles,
cotton and iron, for instance, the de-
cline was extreme, from the fact that
the markets for those commodities were
III condition, which even in theabsence
of panic, must have resulted in lower pri-
ces; but, with these exceptions, the de-
cline was not at all comparable to what
occurred under similar previous panics.
This comparative steadiness Of prices,
at period when few could buy and all
were necessitated to sell, and when
general bankruptcy seemed to be i'm
pending, was largely due to the infu-
ence of the submarine telegraphs. Each
decline in prices only increased the
purchases of our ordinary exportable
products; and even articles which we
import were sustained in alike manner;
for English and German merchants
stood constantly ready to take tropical
products when they could buy them at
New York cheaper than elsewhere. Cot
fee, hides, leather, sugar and many
other articles of less Importance, were
sustained in this way. Before the cable
era, itwould have taken 30days beforeour
market could have got any support
from European purchases; and that
fact virtually made such relief impossi-
bic; while, now, a cargo of coffee could
be offefed to London or Hamburg, and
sold and drawn against, or even paid
for, within twenty-four hours. This
close intercourse between the markets
of the two hemispheres makes them vir-
tually one In times of crisis, each acting
upon the other, and maintaining an
equilibrium of prices, 1t is impossible
to over-estimate the Importance of this
new story upon the progress of COM
mercial panics. The surplus which our
markets, with forty millions of con-
sumers, may be able to dispose Of in
time of crisis is so small a matter to
the markets of Europe, with their three
hundred millions of population, that
the cable will enable us to dispose of it
instantly, when the concession in price
is sufficient to compensate for thetrans-
portation and the loss of interest; and
this fact will in future save us from
any such excessive losses upon goods
as have occurred under former panics.
Could we have any more conclusive ev-
idence of the beneficent effects Of that
commercial intercourse
which ''protectionists" doctrinaires are
so jealous to defeat?
For the purpose Of indicating the eff
feet of the panic upon prices, and the
recovery that has since occurred, we
present the following statement of quo
tations of leading articles before the
panic, at the worst period of depres-
sion, and now: