The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1877-06-05
Our New York Letter.
The state of Business-Exceptiona nal
Prices-The Crops-Southern Prospects
Stocks.

tion to the rule AS to business it is uncertain
and fitful. There is good deal being done of
course-there must always be in place in
which trade is the chief pursuit-but not near
~ so much as usual, nor upon conditions so sat
isfactory to the vender of merchandise. There
are great many vacant stores great many
idle ships andsa multitude of people.out of en-
ployment. Pretty much every description of
property except the necessaries of life is grad
ually shrinking in value, while nearly eyery
article indispenible, or thought to be, to bodily
sustenance is exceptionally dear. There is
scarcely any domestic commodity except coal
which does not cost more than it did last year.
Inc main stay, flour, is at famine prices, and
as for potatoes, they are quite beyond the limi-
tations of economy and are only used in pri-
vate families by the most extravagant and
wasteful classes. The old crop, watery and
worthless, command dollar bushe and new
ones-imported chiefly from Bermuda, find
buyers at three or four dollars the bushel The
expense of living does not decline in proportion
to the falling off of the means whereby to live.
The faculty for saving is very rare here any.
way, unknown, indeed to- the genuine New
Yorker and practiced mainly by imported
Yankees and Teutons. They have an Inherited
knack of finding some excellent substitute for
thing that happens to be Unfortunately expen-
sive, and it serves them In good stead in times
like these. But vast majority of the popula-
ton, especially the people of most limited
means consume pretty much the same kind of
provisions and in the same quantities one year
with another, whether they cost double or half
nrina Than hot
family loses by misuse of one sort or another,
would go very far toward supporting New
England household of the same size. So that
what with diminished resources and chronic
shiftlessness the humber citizens are having
rather hard time They do not realize it, but
they are the tax payers on whom the burden
of the municipal debt weighs most oppressively
and when they used to go year after year to
the polls and vote for the men who were rob-
bling the exchequer. they were uuconsciously
draining their own pockets Now it costs the
city FOUR million dollars year to pay the in
terest on the money that was stolen from her
treasury during the decade ending in 1871, and
thirty millions more for the maintenance of
the local and State governments. These vast
contributions come mainly from the toll and
sweat of the poor. If. they knew it, they
wouldn't be quite so prodigal as.they are in
supporting all the measures which demand the
appropriation of money.
The imperative need of our time is cheap
bread and steady employment for the people.
The first may result from the rewards of az.
riculture if the harvest should prove abundant
That is the direction in which we must look for
relief. 1t is too early to predict what the yield
will be but the feeling is hopeful that it will as
q general thing be good. There is likely 10 be
falling off in some quarters and an increase
in others. Californis is only reckoned on for
half her usual crop. That is a sad deficiency
but will be made up in some measure mayhap
by the additional fertility of Oregon. There is
no doubt there has been a very extensive plant
ing, greater than ever before. But too much
rain at some points and too little at Others and
the plague of insects of all sorts from the wee.
vii to the grasshopper, keep the husbandman in
state of anxiety till the grain is ready for the
reaper.
That there will be an enormous cotton crop is
universally conceded, with the promise of low
er rates for it than at any time since the South
rebelled against the government. But it is not
of 80 much matter what it brings as that it
should be plenty. When food and raiment are
cheap the country prospers. The Southern
states have fine opportunity to recuperate
now. If the people there could rise superior to
the prejudices of caste which have demoralized
four generations of them, they could soon get
thrifty. Past experience does not encourage
the belief that they will ever make it desirable
for men of enterprise and capital to migrate
thither, in view of all the chances they have to
take, not merely of social ostracism but of per-
sonal violence. But il common sense shall SO
far bear sway in that region as to assure the
safety of life and the security of property to all
inhabitants irrespective of their politics or COM
plexion, we shall have new element and
very important one, in the productive capabili-
ties of the Republic.
Nothing could demonstrate more clearly the
general stagnation, than the extremely low
price of coal That has been selling so much
below the cost of production for twelvemonth,
that an hundred million dollars have been TAX
en- out of the pockets of the owners of the lead
ing corporations which are engaged in mining
and transporting this valuable mineral. tits
lower to-day than ever. The supply seems in
exhaustible bat that is only because the de-
mand is 80 much below what it would be if all
the wheels of industry were in motion. 1t is
an anomalous and gloomy state of affairs when
the hard labor Of digging fuel out of the bowels
of the earth goes unrequited.
The railway and banking shares still tend
downward. Competition acts injuriously on
the former and taxation on the latter. AS
soon as the relief measure was defeated in the
State Senate, the Bank of Commerce decided
to reduce its capital from ten millions to five.
Other institutions are initiating the example.
The legislative Solons will find that nothing
has been gained by the wrong they have prac-
ticed in refusing to adjust taxation on basis
Of equity. If they had had grain of sense, to
say nothing of honesty, they would have fore
seen that the effect of their folly would be to
drive out capital from employment in the me-
tropolis. 1t is ridiculous to suppose that mon.
led men will expose their means to spoliation
under the forms of law. They will find ways of
protecting themselves. leaving the burden to
fall all the more GENEROUSLY on the masses who
cannot escape the vigilance of the assessor.
AS to the railways, they are most of them so
highly inflated that collapse, however Sc.
riously it may bear upon stockholders, would
not only be promotive of the general good, but
Is precisely what ought to follow the fictitious
valuations which have been put upon their
shares. The watering process was carried on
with high hand during the paper money
craze. Mr.. Vanderbilt marked up New York
Central eighty per cent. one evening! 1t
would be an exceedingly desirable thing for the
country to have it marked down now in the
same ratio. The public are doing the marking
down to some extent in the dealings upon the
Exchange. N. Y. Central Is less affected than
any other corporation because family interests
bolster it. But the man who buys it at the
current quotations evinces more courage than
discretion. There are at least two reasons for
doubling whether the road can earn dividends.
Contention with rivals is one. The enormous
expense of running it is the other However
If anybody chooses to take the chances they
are welcome to do 3d. The brokers are always
glad to fill orders, and whatever loss happens
in consequence to the buyer is offset by the
gain of the seller. 1t is one of the cases in
hi oh tod L.