The Portland daily press., 1877-08-28

NEW YORK. Aug. %, 1877.
The assurance Of a great harvest has wrought
within few days perceptible feeling of hope
fullness Of the future which is infusiug
animation into all branches of business. For
awhile it seemed as If only the denizens of
the Stock Exchange had any realizing sense of
the great accession of wealth which must follow
plenteous crops of grain and cotton. But the
revivifcation merely began there. 1t has been
gradually spreading among the merchants and
is to-day the prevailing sentiment of the
metropolis.
When the stock speculation first showed
signs of increased vitality there were so many
utter disbelievers in any improvement in any
thing whatever, that it did look like o
piece of reckless temerity to undertake to stem
the current. The prophets who write the
money articles for the dailies were pretty much
all of one mind. Some of them poured in
Vulnerable yials of wrath. scorn, sarcasm
banter and jeer upon the aiders and abettors Of
the movement One leading American
newspaper" in particular, which is nothing IL
not oracular, has been croaking in such sepul-
chral tones for some months, that if anybody
has been unfortunate enough to put faith in its
must be badly out of pocket, and probably is by
this time terribly out of temper. The opinion
prevails in Wall street that these lugubrious
representations have been prompted by
power behind the throne" for the purpose of
weakening the market 80 as TO make it an easy
one to buy in. However that may be, it is only
natural that operators who have been caught
short, as the phrase goes, !. g., who have
borrowed shares and sold them in the hope Of
replacing them afterwards at lower figures,
should be uncharitable towards any soothsayer
who has beguiled them into so disastrous ven-
ture. There is q great deal of this kind of
business done. Simple minded folks would
hardly imagine that men would sell large guam
titles of an article they did not possess and
could not produce or control. 1t is precisely
the same thing as betting that there will be an
advance or decline. But there are rings or
pools constantly in the course of formation to
entrap the unwary into Just such dangerous
contracts and every now and then the curb
stones around the Exchange revsrberate to the
tread of victims who have been CLEANED OUT
byithis hazardous process.
The statement is made and is probably cor
rect that the present throe Is altogether the
work OF the brokers-that the "outside public
which means I suppose, the actual investors,
are not buying. There are good many rea-
sons why operations of this kind would not be
likely to find favor with prudent capitalists.
The losses on the property Of corporations since
the panic have bsen prodigious. In many In
stances OF decline the descent has been rapid
and continuous. When there has been q re.
action it has invariably proved insignificant and
ephemeral. The most hopeful finally got tired
of waiting for the "good time coming AMI set
| tied down into sullen conviction that it never
would come. This was emphatically the tenn
per of the community three months ago when
stocks were forty per cent lower than they are
to-day. A superficial view of the situation
would have led any one to the conclusion that
| it was most unproptious moment to buy. The
| chances of dividends were MT sufficiently pre-
sumptive to encourage moneyed men to take
hold and the probabilities of rise in the value
| OF shares FROG: which no income was derivable
could not reasonably be deemed strong.
Yet In spite of all these discouragng circlm-
| stances, stocks have been advancing steadily
| for sixty days until they have reached ex-
tremely high quotations. There can be but
one explanation of the phenomenon. 1t is an
expression of faith in the speedy recuperation of
the national energies that is to follow the mar
keting OF the crops of the South and West
The converts to the doctrine have been re-
| cruted slowly. The doubters have been nu-
merous and persistent They have maintained
all along that the statements in regard to the
products OF the soil were greatly exaggerated.
then with triAing inconsistency that because
of the great plentitude of the sarth's bounties
the agriculturists would get nothing for them;
that the farmers would refuse to sell on ac-
count of thelow prices and that therefore the
carrying business of the railways would not
equal the expectations of their managers and
that the bubble would soon burst and things
drop to a lower point than ever. On the other
hand 1t is affirmed that the farmers have
raised SO much of every thing that they expect
to sell at, aud will be satisfied to accept, low
rates; that cheap food is the very root and
source of general prosperity; that the country
has been gaining in vitality since the revul-
sion of 1873 because the people have felt the
necessity Of practiclng economy and have been
doing it in quietibut effective way; that the
line of individual indebtedness Is reduced
very much below what 1t has been since the
rebellion broke ont, and that the excess of ex-
l ports over imports for the three years last past
demonstrates with mathematical precision that
we have been making highly fattering gain
in robustness ard vigor.
| do not pretend to adopt either side of the
argument-at any rate not without reserva-
| tiens. The truth no doubt lies bet ween the
two theories That the country is progressing
in the right direction is proposition which
few will seriously dispute; that considerable
distance intervenes between the starting
point aud the haven Is hardly less incontestible.
1t strikes me that those who look for high
| prices OF commod ties of any kind that are not
absolutely scarce will and ought to be disap-
| pointed. What is needed most of all while the
work of rehabilitation is being pursued Is that
the necessaries Of life should be cheap, so that
labor can secure its just reward not SO much BY
increase of wages as by augmenting the pur-
chasing power of the wages now paid.
Of course 1t is hardly supposable that there
should be no reaction from depression as seri-
Gus as has been witnessed in America durin I
the years of tribhlation and suffering that were
the sequence of the great collapse. Prices
when they are going down almost always
| touch so low point that they are sure to re-
/ DOunu just dS WHICH lucy are going up tney Reb
; such momentum that they are often carried
| beyond reasonable limitations. Curously
enough they never descend to such depth but
there are seers who are quite certain they
: haven't touched bottom, nor mount to SUCH Q
bewidering elevation that somebody is NOT
equally sure that the height of their ascent is
far from having yet been reached. A neighbor
of mine whose business life had been spent In
Wall street to such good purpose that he vas
able to retire in his prime with large fortune,
once told me as the result of his experience
that the multitude never would buy stocks
when they were low, but as soon as there was
a decisive advance established, orders came
pouring in. don't know but the samere-
mark is applicable to merchandise and to most
/ kinds OF exchangeable property,
. However, whether the stock speculation Is
based on fact or fiction, it has gone full far
enough to make it desirable that those out
! sders who are in should quietly step out, and
n / tboso .bot 40 o1t chouid raaolufolu kaa,. ork