Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1877-09-13

many hundred millions of dollars, belonging
to thousands of poor people, in common will
scores of rich ones, are invested in the stock:
and bonds of these railroads, the mere re
establishment of fair market value for these
with a reasonable quarterly or half yearly
Dividend, would help the condition of affairs
Immensely. There are signs of an approach
to such state in the advance of railroad
stocks; but these may be delusiuc, and the
bears of the Stock Exchange may gain the
ascendaucy to-day or tomorrow. But the
decline in the price of gold is not largely
dependent on the advance in the price of
bonds and stocks The nation, even with
something like paralysis in many branches of
business, is growing richer by the simple
processes of nature, aided by the simple pro-
cesses of industry, all of viii n are above the
control of stock gamblers, whether bulls or
bears.
For years tn. people Of this country, under
the bitter discipline of hard times, have been
buying foreign commodities so sparingly, and
have been selling abroad their own produc-
tiOns so largely, that there is balance in their
favor Of several hundredf of millions of dollars
! on the business of these years. Importation is
still diminishing, expectation is still augment
ing, aud at last time has arrived when
Europe has to pay America in coin for the
goods sold to her; the inflow of specie exceeds
the outflow; the diminution of imports redu-
FNr
duties, and, in spite of The most ingenious
arguments of paper money enthusiasts and
financial doctrinaiaes whose ideas look bright
on paper, specie, of the standard valu; recog
nized in other lands, is accumulating enor-
mously. Our new crops of breadstuffs, cotton,
oil and other products are abundant, but not
TO such degree as to make the prices very
low, and Europe must be supplied with them,
and must pay for them, either in cash or in
our government bonds, which it holds SO
largely, and which happen to be recognized
as the very best of all government securities,
not even excepting those of Great Britain. In
this way the trade debt of the United States
to Europe becomes reduced in not insignif-
cant way, for there is sensible advantage in
i.aving even a million of our bonded debt
transferred now and then from the hands of
citizens of Europe to those CT citizens of the
United States. There will be many millions
thus transferred before les tionary con-
dition of affairs can arrive; for Europe, with
great war on hand, and with politics every
where disturbing industry, must buy our
productions with gold or with American
securities which represent gold in whole or in
part, and every purchase thus made helps to
diminish our national and our commercial
Indebtedness.
In veM of these actual facts, which arise,
not from any resumption laws of Congress or
anti-resumption platforms of political parties,
but from the supreme laws of trade resting on
the broad basis of popular industry employed
in developing inexhaustible natural resources,
weare inclined to regard the activity and the
advance in the prices in the stock market, and
th9 decline in the premium on gold to figure
unknown for fifteen years, as substantially
lealthful symptoms of returning prosperity to
the country. Sp=culatsrs may, from time to
time, check and perhaps temporarily reverse
the movement; but ever rything indicates that
it will go on, and that the time for resump-
ton of specie payment by the government and
the banks will be considerably earlier than
that contemplated by the act of Congress.