The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1877-04-13
BAD BUSINESS PROSPECTS.

Curiously enough, a combination Of
commercial causes has brought about a
perceptible business gloom within three
weeks of the successful Inauguration of
a new administration and of new political
policies. After the Inauguration we ex-
pected daylight, and have only got in
tenser darkness, perhaps that which is
said to be "just before day" The mark
cts for breadstuffs and provisions have
been declining for some time, and are
very stagnant. The cotton crop which
came forward so abundantly early in the
season, but which manufacturers were
led to believe would all be marketed
early, continues to come forward, aad
will leave some surplus, though not a
large one. Prices of raw cotton have
heretofore fallen, and goods manufac-
tured out of a dearer raw material must
be sold at loss There is a discourage
ing absence of buyers from the dry goods
trade. Coal is another great staple which
has had the bottom knocked out of
it by the great auction of the Pennsyl
vania company to-day. The fall of coal
and the resumption of mining in the
face of a slack demand depresses coal
stocks, and the failure to make railroad
combination depresses the best railroad
securities, until the greatest burden of
the times is the uncertainty of the value
of all investment securities.
Hence a commercial depression and a
financial distrust occur right together.
One cause OF the commercial depression
is the reaction from the steady rise of
prices which took place in provisions and
breadstuffs and some other staples during
the late fall and winter. This rise of
prices was based largely on a European
war, which never came, and the fall has
been going on ever since the close of the
conference at Constantinople. Prices
were held up for a few weeks till they
were higher at Chicago than they were at
New York, and at New York than at
Liverpool; but of course they have had
to drop. The great pork crop, 5000 900
hogs, has declined heavily, notwithstand-
ing $40, 100000 pounds of it in various
forms, have gone abroad in four months.
Wheat, although there was short crap,
is in less demand abroad this year, and
hence declining prices in -four. In short,
large crops of cotton and hog, and de-
creasing foreign demand for wheat and
provisions, on account of the probability
of peace, are reducing the prices of all
these staples TO the low prices Of last
summer
The manifest insccurities of the coal
companies, and the continued inability Of
the railroads 10 negotiate a settled peace
with each other, naturally brighten do
nestle investors, who begin to look upon
each dividend and each coupon cashed as
an acquaintance about to be severed be-
yond renewal. Our collapses. reported
to the English investors, create a great
panic there, which is reported and mag
nifed here, till real investors panic is
The two stock markets OPP
crate on each other like the two metals
in the electric battery, separated only by
a galyanic bath of brine. The protes
sional bears on either side " 90 in" 10
make the most of it.
Business at the west and south, how
ever, is more active and clipper than on
the seaboard These reductions in the
prices of raw materials and provisions
will not disappoint the consumer, as soon
as they can turn around to take the adj
vantage of them. The Pennsylvania
irsn business, by the way, reports pretty |
steady gain in demand and employment I
within three months. In New England |
we are subject to more factuation, snd |
the rise in the tide is by successful bill
ows and back flows, not by a steady on
,et 1t is to be hoped that the late
spring will witness more cheerful aspect |
IF affairs.-SprinqtfeH Republican.