The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-03-19
The Business Outlook.


that the great commercial revulsion under
which industry and enterprise have been
PROSTATE for so many months has at last spent
its force and that business of all kinds is
about to revive. We propose to state below
few of the facts which lead to this belief
and justify the hope that the year 1875 will
mark the beginning of new era of general
prosperity.
l. 1t is a fact that the expenses Of carrying
on business have been greatly decreased during
the last eighteen months. In some branches
there is still extravagant management; but
the majority of business men all over the
country, as well as in this city, have been
compelled to retrench in their living expenses
and to manage their affairs more closely.
Store rents are lower, merchants live on q
less princely scale, clerks, statesmen and
agents are more economical. As result,
commerce, the exchange of products, is per-
formed more cheaply and with greater econ
omy.
2. Production has been materially cheap
ened. Abundant food crops for two years
have lowered the price of the necessaries OF
life, and wages have also fallen. The great
multitude of unemployed workmen have had
time to consider the effect of trade unions
and other labor organizations upon their real
prosperity, and as American workmen are, IN
the main, a sensible folk, we hear less of eight
hour movements and strikes. Labor has to
considerable extent adjusted its demands to
the actual condition of the country's in
dustries, and, except in tho coal region
of PENNSYLVANIA, where disorders still
break out sporadically it may be
said that the laboring force of the
country, too long intoxicated by the artificial
stimulus of paper money and the war, has
now come to its senses, and Is willing once
more to give fair days work for fair days
pay. The time was when dollar day and
roast beef was favorite political cry, and
the time now is when over great part of the
country the laboring man is content if he re-
ceives that wage.
3. The vast economy which was the enforced
result Of the stagpation of the last two
years begins to tell. Divide forty millions
by five, and we get eight millions as about
the number of families in the United States,
all of whom have been compelled, during the
last two years, to live on less than they ex-
pended for some years before. In this and
other cities many families have economical
to the extent of thousands of dollars per an
nun each. What the average per family all
over the country may have been it is impossi-
BILE to tell. Suppose 1t to have amounted to
one hundred dollars, and we should have
saving of eight hundred millions per annum.
n LII A.. -.
still an enormous saving which begins to
tell.
4. The West owes less money than ever be-
fore. The farmers have obtained, on the
whole, good prices for good crops; Western
merchants owe but little in the East, and the
process of liquidating old debts has been
almost completed.
! 5. The South also is prosperous. The
/ sugar crop has been large and very profitable.
The cotton crop has brought fair prices and
has been yearly increasing; and those who
raised it we're able to lay by large amount
of the proceeds last year, for they owed no
old debts Rice also has been an uucom-
monty profitable crop.
6. Prices of merchandise are now so low
that merchants do not incur a great risk in
carrying stocks of goods. Production also
has been so far cheapened that already last
fall we began to export cottons to China and
Cumberland coal to the West Indies. Our e1-
ports increase but slowly, to be sure, and the
great amount of cotton and woolen ma
chnery in the country, the result of injudi-
cious and grasping tariffs, makes large ex-
port trade necessary to enable manufacturers
to get rid of their surplus products. But the
immediate future looks hopeful, and, though
O thorough reorganization and simplfcation
of our customs duties are needed before we can
hope to greatly and permanently extend our
foreign trade and once more cover the sea
with our ships and buy foreign commodities
with our own manufactures, production is no
in many important branches SO far cheap
ened as to enable us to sell in the markets of
the world to some extent
Z. The action Of Congress on the currency
question is now seen TO be unmportant in its
results ii will not either initiate or contract.
and for a year to come, except in the I'M
likely case of foreign war, business men may
begin new enterprises without the fear of sud
den or great changes in values or prices. The
banks are on the whole in healthy condi-
ton, and it is good sign that they look with
suspicion on accommodation paper, notwith-
standing the low ruling rates of interest,
which naturally tempt to imprudent invest
ments. Every one who desires to see bust
ness re-established on a sound basis must re-
joice at this evidence of conservative discrin1i-
nation in the banks.
s. AS signs of the actual revival of business
We may quote the fact that already number
of contracts for new buildings are completing
in this city The iron industry, which was
the most deplorably PROSTATE OF all. is