The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1878-09-28
Good Time Coming.

The following article, which we copy from the
Oregonian, contains the whole subject of % Hard
and - Good Times in q nutshell. There are
points in it which will be of interest to our own
community
Edward Atkinson, of Boston, well known as a
writer on industrial and commercial science and
financial economy, in a recent paper declares that
the element of well-beiBg and prosperity never be-
fore existed in such vigor and amplitude as at the
present time, and that even mistakes of legislation
cannot long neutralize or prevent the benehcent
operation of these elements. 1t is not difficult to
conjecture what laws he has in view when he refers
to bad legislation as the great influence for evil
which the happy conditions Of the land have to over
come; and even those who refuse to see evil in those
laws may derive encouragement from the conviction
of so sagacious and careful an observer that the
elements Of American prosperity are so strong ana
abundant as to counterfeit and overpower all adverse
forces. 1t certainly is a fact that apart from the
natural resources and productivity of the country
the conditions preliminary TO better times were never
more suspicious than they are just now. In despite
of all foolish financial laws, the credit OF the country
is daily growing better, and the products of American
industry which find a foreign market are continually
increasing. This increase is, of course, greatly the
result of the Incompatible development of machinery
in this country with the consequent cheapening OF
the commodities produced. Herein we have a result
which is exclusively due to the peculiar energy of
the people, to that unwearied industry which
gradually overcomes the injurious effects OF lDJudl-
cious or mischievous legislation. Another argument
which ~justifes the conviction that better times are
coming and have indeed begun is the extraordinary
facility of intercourse between different sections of
the country, the swift and uninterrupted commercial
circulation of the interior. Twenty years ago the
transportation of a hundredweight of wheat from
Chicago to New York cost almost its value. 1t now
costs nine cents; while until within a few years we
of the Pacific Slope had no certainty of finding a way
of exporting our agricultural products to a sure for
eign market. Now for the first time this advantage
attains its full Importance in connection with other
favorable preliminaries of permanent prosperity. Of
particular value with reference to the stability OF
better times coming is believed to be the distribution
of labor which is being effected by reason of the hard
times through which the country has been passing.
Great numbers of laborers have been and are still
being transferred from places and occupations In
which they found no steady employment and are be-
coming cultivators of the soil. Thousands have left
San Francisco and other principal cities within the
past year, large numbers of whom are going upon
the public domain; while many of those who are
still 50 hanging on'' around the cities are the incor-
rigible idlcrs and loafers of whom nothing is to be
expected and whose perjury is mostly their own
choice. The Importance of rightly distributing labor,
of avoiding its undue accumulation where not really
needed, is so well understood at present, that there
seems to be no part of the country in which the pub
lie intelligence does not exert some influence upon
the movement of population. We may therefore
trust that the old mistake will be in some degree
avoided in future, the mistake which has caused so
much want and suffering, the mistake of crowding
multitudes into places without the certainty of per-
manent occupation. With so many vast tracts of
uncultivated territory, this country is still far from
the condition under which idleness, scarcity and suf-
fering are the necessary heritage of many persons
able and willing to work.