Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1878-01-24
Will tlae Silver Bill Help Manu-
factUrers?

10 cOnSOerallOh OF Ine e1eCtS Oh the ptnu-
ing Silver Bill That this bill will not raise,
but will probably depress the price of silver,
and thus will fail to help silver producers, has
been shown. That it will expose the banks to
extreme peril, and thus will compel them to
resort to extreme measures for their protec-
tion, has been shown. Many DO not yet rea-
lie the danger. Should the bill pass, general
refusal to make loans otherwise than payable
in gold viii be the necessary consequence.
What effects are manufacturers to expect?
A very large number of them are in debt.
-Four years have been very hard on them;
many have failed many are still idle; those
who can work at all are forced to calculate
upon the smallest possible margins of profit.
The least possible risk is necessary to their
existence. Their business obliges them to
borrow continually, to carry stock and labor
from the beginning of production to the pay
ment of notes for finished and delivered goods.
No other class is so greatly dependent upon
steadiness of currency; for the merchant,
though he may borrow relatively more, can
turn himself more quickly, and stands the
risk of change for shorter time. Dependent
upon credit, if the time comes when a great
fall in the value of currency threatens ruin to
the banks, what can the manufacturer do?
Loans will become scarce, and very hard to
get, unless he pledges himself to pay gold
value. If he does that, he takes all the risk
of the possible decline upon himself. Prices
;ot all goods vary more slowly than prices of
fuctuating currency; be must buy and promise
to pay in dollars worth ninety-seVen cents,
with probability that dollars, when paid to
him, will be worth not more than ninety
cents. Whai will become of his narrow mar
gin of proitsl
If prices would advance swiftly, and an era
of initiation begin at once, he might hope, pro-
vided consumption would not be checked by
financial uncertainties and the advance of pri-
ces. But nothing is more certain than that
consumption would be checked. Thousands
of buyers would be pinched by the alarm of
lenders and the inability to borrow. Railroads
would seek in vain for money with which to
buy rails or cars; cities and towns would seek
in vain for money with which to continue
public buildings and improvements; thous-
ands OF individuals, firms and corporations
dependent upon new loans or renewals for
means to continue operations, would be fore
ed to restrict purchases. The falling of leaves
when frosts of Winter come is not mo re in
evitable than the sudden stagnation of all en-
terprise which depend upon borrowed capital,
whenever war against lenders threatens their
safety. None who have means to lend could
then look with confidence to the future, there.
fore none who do business with borrowed
capital could count upon renewal of lorns;
therefore new undertakings must pause, and
purchases must be checked. The manufacture
er with slender margins and heavy debts, with
credit everywhere shaken and purchases
| checked by disturbance Of the very basis of
all commerce and credit-what will be his
fate?
|. Disturbance of credit always means with
drawal of capital from all sorts of enterprises
and undertakings. If Congress passes the
Bland bill, it enacts that disturbance of cred
it,a panic many times worse than that of 1873,
shall begin at!once. There are means by which
the banker or money lender may check it and
| limit its effects as to himself; but upon whom
then, fall the risk and the loss Inevitably
the manufacturer will have to bear the largest
share. No other branch of industry is 80
greatly dependent upon steadiness of CONNER
cial credit and ready supply of loanable funds;
and credit earthquake, which means mis-
chief for everybody, means ruin for manufac-
| turers.
The experienced and shrewde men of every
manufacturing State, with possibly one excep-
tion, see this clearly. Pennsylvania is the
only State, largely engaged in manufactures,
! from which vote in the Senate is expected
to be cast for commercial earthquake. II is
the only such State in which there is trace
of public. opinion favorable to the Silver Bill,
with all its risks. Yet that State ought to be
the very last to forget what it has lost by the
disturbance of credit in 1873. No other has
suffered relatively as much, because no other
State depends in its main industries so largely
upon commercial credit. The cost OF iron has
to be borne from the very opening of the
mine, and the erection of expensive works, un-
til months after the marketing of products,
and the demand for iron is controlled by the
readiness of capital to build, extend, improve
or sustain railways. The vast producing
industry of that State depends upon the same
conditions. The great corporations of the
State are all conspicuously heavy borrowers,
and are bound also for the obligations of hun
dreds of corporations which are kept alive in
these hard times by credit. If there is any
Stats In the Union which is certain to lose
more than any other by great disturbance OF
the credit system, that State is Pennsylvania;
and yet one of its Senators openly favorG, and
another Is represented as willing to vote for, q
bill to threaten every bank, ever savings bank,
every insurance and every trust company, and
to compel them to call in and readjust their
/ loans as fast as possible for their own protec-
| ton.
Industry needs, above all things, security.
Slender margins of profit may return great
wealth, where credit is mistaken and steady,
loanable funds are ample, and the measure OF
values is not disturbed. On no other terms
can manufacturers thrive, in this or any other
country, in times of general economy and de-
preston throughout the civilized world.
IN. Y. Tribune.
A WASHINGTON SPECIAL to the
Cincinnati Gazette says that it is hint.
ed that the President, in his forthcom.
ing civil service message, will recon-.
mend that the selection of POstmasters
In smaller towns be made by popular
vote, and that the Postmaster General
shall merely confirm the selection
made. This plan was adopted 10 the
Presidents own town In Ohio, and Is
said to have given great satisfaction.
Another subject to which the civil