Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1878-06-05
Duration Of Business Depres
aiona.
From the Baltimore Sun.

Have we since 1873 been passing
through commercial crisis unprece,
dented in the history of this co,in,rv
Slough OF uespunu ,tfa, ,s.~ 81.
Of extrication is very remote? Will
the reaction in prices and the shrink
age in values in all their force be per-
manent? A comparison with the
panic period Of 1887 and tho several
years following is suggestive on these
points. Something like five years
have now elapsed since the present
depression began, and q correspond
ent of the New York Bulletin thus
presents the contrast:
"The amount of capital in this
country in 1887, and the number of
persons engaged in business Of all
kinds, were much smaller than in
1873, but the destruction to credit
and the sacrifice Of property were
comparatively far greater, and after
the lapse of five years there was moth
ing like the vitality in business and
trmness in prices and abundance of
unquestionable credit that exists at
the present time. In l843 cotton was
selling at 4 cents, lowest price for fif-
ty years pork at "a to IS per barrel,
with forced Gales at 50. Shipments of
beef were made to the West Indies
at $3.50 for new and $3 for old, and
-four was retailing at $4 In Albany
cargoes of lumber were selling at
$3.50, the freight alone ON which was
$6. Real estate in all our cities sold
at ruinous prices to those owning it.
At New Haven, lots in the southern
portion of the city which cost the pur-
chasers in 1896 from $35 to $40 per
front foot, sold in lS43 at 81. SO per
foot, and lots in the northeastern part,
say in Hamilton and Wallace streets,
which in 1885 sold for $25 per front
foot, in l843 brought from 81 10 81 so
only. These evidences of continued
panic, you will perceive, were over
five years from it's commencement
in fact, there was great dullness in
most departments of trade for years
after and no substantial relief unit
about 1S4S."
Apart from the waste CT war, a
great deal of the aggregate wealth of
the country is not lost. 1t has simply
changed hands or nominal values.
The shock of the panic of 1873 was
very severe, and the damage itinflict-
cd was widely extended. But if the
shock was great, the power of recu-
perstion 10 also great. And although
the early stages Of recovery have been
very slow, and values feel the effect
Of that shattering of confidence
which was caused by the financial
cstsclysm of 1873, the very slowness
of the recovery sugurs well for the
permanence of II when it is reached
A return to the high prices of the
!. war is not to be expected, for then, al
after the War of 1872, everything wa.
artificially inflated, and, as it did aft.
er the War of 1872, strong reaction
would have set in until values were
brought down to their proper stand
ard, even if the crisis Of 1873 had not
. occurred. That crisis simply acceler-
ated and. increased the shrinkage. II
, the extent of the difference between
the abnormal shrinkage caused by tn,
panic and the normal shrinkage tha
would have been produced by the re
! action of the war consumption anC
+ prices we may expect the country Il
, recover, and that recovery would b.
: the more speedy il Congress wonli
; leave of tinkering with the finances