The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-04-05
Hard Times.

suffering for want OF money among our
people at large is undiminished, If not
actually increasing. We all know the i'm
mepse amount Of destitution and poverty
In our own midst, and we daily see evidence
from abroad that the condition of things is
as bad elsewhere. In New York City~we
hear of thousands of houses tenantless, and
people by tens of thousands on the very
verge of starvation. Throughout the
whole North and West the situation is very
bad. People cannot get work, they cannot
collect debts, they cannot raise money on
mortgage, they cannot buy anything on
credit.
The most singular thing about it all is
that the country is at the same time over
flowing with money. New York banks are
surfeited with it, and find difficulty ip
placing it, on call, at the rate of three. to
four per cent per annum. In fact all the
money that was in the United States be-
fore the panic is here now, and is not
locked up by any suspension Of banking
establishments. What then can be the
cause of the mysterious scarcity of money
in actual circulation . Here, in New Or
leans, We have received nearly ono hun
dred millions of dollars for the years crop,
and there appears to be less money than
there was when the first bale of cotton ar
rived at the beginning of the season.
Certainly the reason why every kind OF
business is languishing now cannot be the
scarcity of money in the country. There
are between seven and eight hundred mil
lions of dollars of currency to- day in the
United States and if there were twice that
amount, it would not improve business at
all, 80 long as the present tendency to
stagnation exists. On" the other hand II
capital had an active fit upon it, business of
all kinds would be active IL there were only
one hundred millions of dollars in the conn
try. In fact if there were not one single
dollar of gold, silver, greenbscks or any,
other kind of money here at all ; if all
payments had to be made in rice, as was
the case in Japan, business could, under
certain impulses, be far more animated
than at present. Money is only con-
venience in business, it is not the cause or
stimulant Of it.
/ We have to look deeper, then, for the
cause of "hard times" than in the mere
plenty OF scarcity of circulating medium.
Even in frontier country, where they
hardly ever see a dollar, there are no hard
times whenever their productions are in de-
mand. So long as hides and furs are easily
exchangeable for salt, powder and blankets,
the settlers account themselves prosperous,
though no money changes hands but il
their articles of exchange are not in de-
mand, if the traders will give but little for
them and that unwillingly, then there are
hard times on the frontier too.
The fact is that +" hard times is nothing
but poverty. Whenever there is depre-
citation of values, with q man or q commu-
nifty, it is no longer so easy to get what is
needed, and whenever his or it's property
rises in value, there ensues what is called
prosperity.
The former of these conditions is just
the case now in America. The country is
great deal poorer than it was, or was
supposed to be. There has been heavy
decline in values. Stocks Of all kinds fell
ruinously during the panic and they are
still down. Real estate, especially in the
South, has also fallen greatly, and maniac
tured goods have shared in the general
decline. The country, then, with all this
immense depreciation on it's hands, is just
like man who owned property enough to
make him comfortable aud suddenly finds
it reduced to half its value. Of course the
times are hard for him. He can barely live
by strict economy. improvements stop,
his enterprises are suspended, his servants
and laborers discharged or reduced in
wages. Thus depreciation In property
works depreciation in labor, and labor 10
the poor mans capital. He, then, shares
in the hard times Of his rich employer.
When, then, depreciation OF property is
general, as it is now in the United States,
there is corresponding loss for labor and
the hard times becomes universal.
The situation in this country is greatly
aggravated, also, by the fact that our peo-
pie, as individuals, are heavily in debt.