The enquirer southerner., 1874-10-30
rHE CAUSE OF THE HARD TIMES.

A northern paper says that the question
now most frequently heard in New York,
Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, &C., is
what il the matter with trade e. This
question, says tho Lynchbur News. is not
proposed BY the great merchants of the
Northern cities, for they know the cause.
They know il better than Congress knows
it. They know il better than Cabinet min
listers or evsn editors know it. Collectors
and drummers, the Ieportorial correspon-
dents Of the great merchants, never make
errors In their rsports. They work with the
certainty that purely business habits bestow.
Ask them what Is the matter with trade, and
they will tell you in single sentence. That
sentence is" No money at the South-po
property worth rush IN the South" That's
what Is the matter With trade There is no
collecting money In the South, there is
no selling anything there and if he venture
North, the southerner il now sure that with
out buying q single bill Of goods he can find
credit enough to pay his bill at the St. Mich
olas and purchase return ticket.
Southern paper is disappearing from the
discount mart. Representing nothing Of
present value, 1t Ia no longer offered as q
medium OF trade exchange.
For tims it was believed that this utter
prostration Of things in the South was con-
fined chiefly to South Carolina and Louisi-
ana, Would 1t were! But the truth is, it
Is the case In every State. Wherever under
! the name Of Republican party, and loyalty,
and right to the negro, etc. etc." the ad-
vsnturous carpst-bagssr has ruled or now
rules, there the same exhaustion is. 1t
starss hopslessly from the blask windows OF
the tsnantlsss shops OF Montgomery and
Mobile, Is from those that line the ones
busy sidewalks Of Meeting and St. Charles
streets in Charleston.
In the city Of xsblls to-day, one Of the
largest hotels Is offered rent free to any one
who will pay the taxes. Along Commerce
street the stores that rented for twelve hun
drsd year are now vainly offered for four
hundred. No business square is unorna.
mented with the notice ITO Let Cheap 2
Alas they are all dear OF any price just now.
Without goods, or monsy, or the credit to
procure goods, Of what avail 10 the store at
any rsntl With goods spd store and all
what avail the possession when nobody has
any money 10 buy withal7 The people are
| Just 40 poor in Alabama - in Louisiana, and
il We except Shelby county, they are just as
poor in Tennessee. This is no fancy pic
ture. 1t comes from 20 party reports. The
condition Of Alabama is detailed at length
In the New York Times, q Republican paper
which. until very istsis applaudsd, or de-
Tended, or excused every ons Of those acts
by the governing party-the acts which
have led TO the desolation itself now mourns
1t mourns over the South now, cot because
| of the South, but because Of the North
to whom the price OF the cotton the -ugar,
and Of the turpentins comes not in exchange
for goods dry, or hard, or liquid.
All this is the work of the carpet -baggers.
Wherever they go, these political locusts
| tnrn the garden into a wilderness. But
where did they come froml The North
In the Bible the locusts are spoken Of under
the hguraLivs name Of "the Northern Army. =
| That is their literal description here If the
North is beginning to reap the fruit OF their
doinGs, she has only herself to blame that
she did not crush them oht long ago,