The New York herald., 1875-09-24

ton Of industry. Another and potent cause
is to be found in the bursting Of the great
railroad bubble in 1873. We had been build
ing railroads in the Wilderness for number
of years, largely on land grants, subsidies
and bonds issued or guaranteed by States,
counties, cities and even townships Enor-
nous sums were thus spent, or rather wasted I;
and this was not all. Thousands of families
were moved upon new lines OF railroad, and
spent their savings for worthless land bought
at high prices only to find that when the
road was completed they were left beyond
the reach of a market for their products. In
every way money was wasted in the work Of
building railroads. But in the meantime
the manufacture of iron in all those branches
used by railroads received remarkable
stimulus the iron mills, foundries and
forges were all busy the thousands of peo-
pie who We're employed in them, and the
other thousands who depended on them and
the still other thousands who sold them their
supplies, all were enriched. The business
became so great and the industries depend
ing on or profting by it were so numerous
that the whole country felt the stimulus of
an artificial and false prosperity.
The railroad projectors were using not
capital earned, but borrowed money. When
at last they could borrow no more they sud
denly stopped. What was the result? First,
the thousands of men who had been used in
building the railroads were discharged, and
the other thousands of farmers, manufac-
turers and shopkeepers who had supplied
these with the necessaries and luxuries Of
life in turn lost the market for their products.
iron-not track bars alone, but the whole
mass of ironmongery needed by railroads
was seriously checked and, again, other
thousands of families were thrown out of en-
ployment by the stoppage of mills, foun-
dries and machine shops and, again, still
other thousands farmers manufacturers,
merchants and dshopkeepers-found heavily
diminished market for their products. But
with the stoppage of iron mills came the
stoppage of coal mining with the stoppage
of railroad building came a check to the lum-
Der business and in every case loss and
population who live by supplying coal
miners, lumbermen, carpenters, car max
ers, &c.
Between September, 1873 and September
1875, in less than two years, over one thou
sand millions of railroad bonds in the
United States have been declared 'failed,"
which means that the interest due to their
owners has not been paid. How much of
this great sum is held here is not known
probably not less than half This, again. rep
resents a great loss of income much of
which would have been expended; and here
again is a loss of market to producers of all
kinds.
Consumption being thus checked by gen.
eral loss, poverty and prostitution, con-
sequent upon wasteful railroad construc-
ton, it is natural that we should have
period of stagnation and hard times We
see one of the fruits of the evil we have de-
scribed in the fact that the banks are filled
with money lying idle and unused, and
loaned by the owners at the lowest rates of
interest known in this market for many
years. But undoubtedly the crisis is pro-
longed and its evils are intensified by the
fact that we are cursed with an irredeemable
currency-a currency, therefore, of uncertain
and varying value. This checks enterprise
and makes capital-still sore from the blow
of 1873-cautious and desponding If we
had sound currency industry would
already begin to revive; for there are many
avenues open for the prudent investment of
money, if only the owner of it could be GER
tain whether his dollar which he now puts
in would be worth fifty cents or a dollar and
quarter two years from now.