Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1875-02-24


year little more for the articles which we
use, or upon which we subsist, that few per
sons are aware Of the great increase Of them
which has taken place within the last TWEEN
ty-fve years. The chief staples Of food, sx-
oept breadstuifs and the chief raw materials
used in manufactures, except cotton, have
advanced from thirty to two hundred and
fifty per cent What is to be the effect Of
this rise Of prices is a great and serious
question. The best political economists are
contemplating it with great solicitude.
It is obvious that II all prices were to rise
uniformly together, if wages as well as com
modities were to advance equally no person,
whose income depends upon the profits OF
business, would be the loser. But such has
not been the case with the great mass Of the
people. Merchants and mechanics and cap
iialists have found their profits increase
with the rise Of prices and with the cheap
ness Of money Professional men have
suffered more. There is always a jealousy
of professional charges. The services which
are the product Of the brain are ever the
most gndgingly paid. The man Of wealth
who layishes money without stint upon his
house and equipage or upon the dress Of his
wife and daughters, and who is therefore
source Of profit 10 mechanics, merchants
and tradesmen Of all sorts, finds fault with
the price of his newspaper, contributes
tardily 10 his minister's salary, frets at the
expense Of his chidrens education, grumbles
at his taxes, frowns on the doctors bills and
reyenges himself on his lawyer with scrip
tural maledictions The farmer, who re-
ceives forty cents per pound for his butter
where he once was glad to get a shilling,
who sells his beef or mutton at eight or ten
dollars per hundred, whore he once sold for
two or three, who has more than doubled
his receipts in every product he takes to
market, pays his minister at the old rates,
stops his paper if the editor raises the sub
scription. and is sick and dies at the regular
prices Of a quarter of century ago. The
remuneration Of all professional men has not
kept pace with the enhanced cost of living
Those who live by the labor of the hands,
still more severely. In the great business
establishments Of the country wages have
fallen, and work has been curtailed by the
depression Of business, so that thousands on
thousands of laborers are suffering from the
shrinkage of the price of labor, and the az
probation Of the prices Of the means OF
subsistence. The tendency of certain
kinds Of labor, is towards relatively lower
prices and the condition of our manufacture
ing towns is rapidly changing for the worse.
The degradation in this respect has been
great within twenty years.
The country is rapidly filling with man.
ufacturing foreign class, which is tied hope |
lessly to its machine for such wages as the |
employer sees fit to give, and stupid force
is being substituted for intelligent and skill
full labor. When the wheels of the manu-
factories stop in times of depression, the
country swarms with tramps, laborers liber-
ated by hard times from toll, and seeking |
subsistence as vagabonds, on charity or on |
thieving. The old social problems of wealth |
and poverty, of labor and wages, return to |
vex our own country, with its vast unoccu-
pied regions
What are some of the causes OF this state
Of things
Doubtless expensive wars, both in this |
country and in Europe, have had something
to do with this matter. The increase of pop |
ulation in the great cities of the country
an increase beyond that Of production-ha |
had something also TO do with it. The de |
probation Of gold in consequence of its |
large production, has had its effect The |
establishment of the legal tender currency |
as the money Of the country has probably |
had still more than all to do with it. A |
currency that has no fixed value will, of |
necessity, derange and enhance all prices.
The great margin between gold and cur
rency has fostered the widest speculations.
For instance the railroad debt Of the coun-
try, contracted since 1850, is a thousand
million Of dollars. The bonds have been
negotiated abroad, with gold ranging from
fifty to two hundred per cent. premium.
The foreign purchaser of railroad securities
has paid for them about, OH the average,
ffty-seven per cent. of their face value dur
ing this period. These bonds pay seven or
eight per cent. interest, in gold. The rail |
road debt OF the country is consequently
paying an actual interest of fourteen or ff.
teen per cent. And ii is the same way to |
very large extent with our government
bonds. The government is paying on the |
average ten to twelve per cent, on its debt |
OF course the railroads plunge, one after the |
other, into bankruptcy, and Congress is now
considering the subject of increasing the |
taxes s3O0o0,0oo per annum. Gold is APP
preciating, currency is depreciating, business
is at a stand-still, interest and unpaid debts
are accommodating, labor is calling for work
in vain, and the future is regarded with such
anxiety that capital locks itself up in the |
vaults Of banks and frets at any suggestion |
oinew railroad or manufacturing enterprises,
The wealth of the country, outside OF its
real estate, consists in government and state |
bonds, and in railroad and corporation secu-
rites. The real estate always pays a mod |
crate interest, the government bonds a good |
rate, and just now the railroads scarcely any |
thing at all. There has been an immense loss of |
paying wealth in the depreciation Of railroad
stocks and bonds. The great interest that
the government pays, owing to the deprecia-
ton OF the currency, is procured by taxes,
and infiicts corresponding loss upon the
people. Real estate, in the end, has TO put |
its Atlantean shoulders under all the other
securities, and when railroad bonds are
struck out as worthless, and cease to pay |
dividends, when government bonds demand |
larger taxation in order to meet their inter.
est, real estate will begin to fall under the
burden. 1t is already beginning to stagger
under the load, and is getting moro and moro
dull and heavy on the market.
The great source Of present evil and of
anxiety for the future is, that our currency
has less intrinsic value than the curreneies
OF the foreign countries with which we have
intimate commercial relations. Prices are
inflated by cheap paper, and whatever we i'm.
port we buy at prices governed by our own
currency and pay for in prices governed by
the currency of other count.;as ~. -.