Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1875-10-08
The Slow Times.


painful processes the national industry is TO
be re-adjusted. The waste OF the war, add
the sudden and temporary removal from IN cir
usual pursuits Of two millions Of active and
productive men, who ceased to be producers
and became large consumers, gave an enor-
nous stimulus to manufactures and to BUSH
ness. The mercantile and manufacturing
centers grew. with marvellous rapidty
money was plenty and easily accumulated.
Consequently. IL was a great time for new
railroad projects, for gigantic manufacturing
projects, for all sorts of money making pro.
jects When the war ceased, il found the
country, 10 its facilities for business, adjusted
not to peace basis, but TO war basis.
We had manufactures and trade all estab.
lished upon the conditions Of "a most waste.
full war. Tho government ceased to buy
and pay wages, and the question CT panic,
disaster, and universal staguation became
only question Of time. .... ..t,..
| We have had the panic, the disaster, and
the stagnation, and the country has looked
in vain for n revival We have had a
measurably prosperous agricultural interest,
which promises continuance, but trade aud
manufactures do not move. The almost in.
calculable amount of money invested in rail-
roads, in mills, in business, lies unprodac-
tive aud it is becoming every day more
evident that much Of it must remain so.
We have more railroads than we need more
mills than can be employed, more facilities
for business and more men to do business
than the country in state of peace has uso
for. There can be but one end to this-a
great loss ofcapital and re.adjustmeLto OF the
national industry, With this change there
must also come greater economy, aud con.
tentment with smaller profits. The scale Of
living must come down, Men who used to
spend twenty thousand dollars a year must
live on ten thousand those who spent ten
thousand must make themselves comfortable
90 FIVE thousand ! those who thought them
selves straitened on the, latter sum must
manage to get their expenses within twenty
five hundred, and so on to the lowest. The
laboring men whose wages were SO high
during the war musts stop striking. or they
will get no work at all ;, simply because the
paying Of high wages is an impossibllity.
Men who have money will not invest il in
business that pays nothing. Men who own
mills will not run them at loss.
There is no royal highway to a better
condition of things. Neither sea of rags
nor sea OF gold can float business that
does not need to be done. OF course no
country can live on paper lies. They have
been a curse to us, aud cursed be they who
, strive to make the curse perpetual but ever
il we move squarely back upon a specie
basis, the old ''good times" would not, could
not, return. Business that does not need to
be done cannot be done without disaster
If we have more mills than we need, more
railroads than VIC need, more Commercial
= agencies and middlemen than we need, the
. surplus must necessarily be unused, or il
must he used without profit, aud in such
way as to destroy the profit of all engaged
in common lines of interest.
So we do not look for sudden revival o
? business any longer. II our diagnosis Of th,
h case is correct, there can be no sudden cure
We of this generation will hardly live 10 Sc,
the country genuinely prosperous. Grea
masses of property are to be abandaaed
h The capital stock Of multitudeS of corpora
q tons will be sunk. and their property viii
, pass into the hands of bondholders aud cred
itors, at such price that they may posabl
be made remuneratiyely useful. Hundred
Of millions of invested funds will PRACTICAL,
cease to exist. The things in which thes
Q funds have been invested cannot be used
aud they might just as well have beef
. thrown into the fire. Thus the means o
u living have been enormously reduced anon
y capitalists, and more men need work to d
Q than used to need it, With this fact on on,
side, we find set over against it the other fac
that, of the multitude who had ADJUSTED
% their industry to, the conditions of war, Onl.
a part are needed under the conditions {
peace. Tens, twenties, 6ltes are TO b
@ counted out of the mills, the factories, tn
shops, and sent either into ideness or int
: some other field of industry. In othe
y words. our national industry is to be read
Justed. a aa
o The cities and eenters which have grow
). so rapidly will naturally cease to grow
: The larger cities will grow, perhaps, as LOr
70 don grows, by their attraction for men
II wealth, but the men Of enterprise will nc
y crowd into places where there is no work {
y reward for them. The boys will stand b.
# their fathers farms better than they hay
done, aud hundreds of thousands of men an
> women who have left the farm aud the farI
l. house must return to them. 1t is pleasau
y to reflect that living eau be won from ii
r. ground, and that agriculture holds certai
A cure for all our troubles. Mr. Greeeys oil
advice, "Go West, young man." was base
y upon philosophy whose soundness the pee
Is pie OF this time cannot question. The tel
dency in his time was to overdo bushes
nc aud that tendency went on, to the distressiL
, results of which all Of us are the witness
aud the victims.
" it is pitful to see men and women ly1
p idle. 1t is pitifql TO see them iq grei
m masses thrown out of employment. v
re- wish they could be made to understand no
hopeless the situation is for at least half
them--how necessary it is that they shou
" seek employment in agricultural pursuits,
IS, lives Of industry adapted to the present OF
IS cumstauces Of the country--in anything 40
n any place except that which sproved to
insufficient for their needs. This cham
y" must come. aud the quicker it comes the be
o. ter for them and the better for the countr.
~ Let us leave nothing to the political do
ty tors. They cannot help us with any of the
schemes, except by giving US an honest fna
cial system. Even this cannot work Il
o. miracle Of making people consume mo
IN than they want, aud Of supplying wO
ly where it is not needed. The American pc
H. pie are not lacking in shrewdness, patienc
o. adaptiveness, and industry, aud the go'
'" time will come, though it Is likely TO
Gu long delayed. ---[Scribner.
~ 4 .n--------------
d. The Grange as a Reformer.