The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1876-07-07

world-Its Cause and probable Early
Relief. a -r
[From the Pail Mall Gazette.l
From the middle of 1870 to almost the
middle of 1871 there was the Franco
German war. The came peace-the in
demnity of two hundred and twenty
millions sterling paid to Germany. and
the schemes of vast and rapid expendi-
ture occasioned in that country by the
sudden requirement of so much riches.
Two or three years previously Austria
and Hungary had become one nation and
had entered upon a free and constitu-
tional life. Italy had become unified,
and all over Germany there had been
a removal of the obsolete and autocratic
impediments to labor and skill. The
Suez canal was opened at the end of
1869. Telegraphs were being carried to
the farthest parts of the commercial
world; and by successive inventions
steam-vessels had been brought to a
point of economy.which gave them the
command of the longest voyages. But
besides all these inhuences-nearly all
of them in their spheres and degrees
revolutionary-th United States since
1867 had been constructing railways at a
pace never before reached either in that
or any other region and not railways
only, but canals, docks, wharves, ware
houses, and every sort of fixed invest
ment directed to the extension of bust
ness, commerce, and manufactures. In
Europe there mad been since about 1862
the regular appearance as large borrow
ers of group of half-barbarous states
never before heard of in the money mar
ket. Turkey, Egypt, Honduras, Peru,
Roumania, Venezuela, and the whole
tribe of South American settlements OBJ
tanned year by year tens OF millions
sterling, and applied at least some
portion of the money to the purchase OF
English materials and labor. 4, ..-
The effect of the war of 1901 in
stopping nearly ali productive labor and
enterprise in France and Germany-the
waste, in short, of gigantic hostilities
carried on for twelvemonth-and the
delirium of the peace and its accompany
ing ransom in the conquering nation
threw upon this country in 1918 the
task of supplying the urgent demands
of no small part of Europe. To
the fortunate persons who happened to
be in possession of the means of supply
notably the owners of coal-mines and
-works-the results were fabulous.
AS we all well remember, nothing was
talked of hut colossal fortunes made in
few months, and an advance of wages
and prices beyond all example. The
whole industrial and commercial machine
was being driven with velocity and
subjected to twists and alterations il
could not long endure. A pause came
in the summer of 1873. The panic in
New York in September of that veal
told very plainly that in the United
States the tension had become insup
portable, that floating capital was ex
hausted for time, and that cost of pro
duction had destroyed consumption
Exactly the same phenomena repeated
themselves in Germany, Austria, Russia
Holland, and Belgium. In all these
countries since the autumn of 1873 Their,
has been process of relapse and retrea
from state OF things in which expendi
ture of all kinds had outrun the first In
come and then floating capital; in which
wages had long exceeded the intrinsic
value of the work performed in exchang
for them, and in which the marke
prices of securities had been raised ex
cessively by belief in future profit
very far larger than the communit,
could furnish or afford. nnf
The case of the United States and q
Central Europe is in effect our own. TIL
six years 1867.73 included, as regard
commerce and manufactures, a create
number of events and changes, each @
them more or less revolutionary, tha
any preceding period of the same lengt
: events and changes, too, which affec,
ed greater number of countries an
regions. Considering the profoun
character of the disturbing causes, tn
wonder is that the reaction has not bee
even more disastrous than it has bee
aud is; and it is precisely the amplitud
of the arresting and compromising force
: now at the command of industry an
commerce which affords the best reaso
for believing that recovery is certain