The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-08-14
Industry and Speculation.

| enterprise which is at last upon us. Rail-
road people tell us that the present year
will see more miles of new road built than
any previous year in our history, except
one or two; and to great extent at least
the new roads are connections and feeders
of we'll established trunk lines in the West,
whose completion will open large tracts OF
new and fertile lands to profitable settlement
| Within year or fourteen months 1t Is
probable that the new transcontinental
lines will be in operation, the Northern
Pacific having just closed contracts Tor
two hundred miles of each end of that
road, with a promise of filing the
intermediate space within year. In
the South the Southern Pacific of Cali
fornia and st. Louis road are rapidly APP
preaching each other, and will make
junction some time next year. In the in
terror Of the continent new roads are ex-
tending north and south, and when we
consider the railroad work in hand We
cease to wonder at Mr.. Hewitt's report that
all the iron men who have the situation
and the machinery to make cheap iron are
hard at work and making money
Meantime there is multitude Of new
canal and internal improvement projects,
both here and in Europe. There are the
Panama and the Nicaragua Ship canals, the
Florida Ship Canal, a new railroad to connect
New York and Chicago, and the improve
ment of the Mississippi. In England they
are even talking about a bridge across the
British Channel, but that looks to US like
joke. Even with money at two per cent
bridge stock. In France they have voted
twenty million dollars for harbor improve
ments; French engineers are planning a
railroad from Algiers to Timbuctoo /; the
Russians are about to divert the course of
the Oxus into its ancient bed. In South
going on on large scale.
In fact, all the world is preparing to
spend great deal of money in the next
few years in substantial and important i'm
provements, tending to the convenience of
commerce and REORGANIZATION, and
as these numerous projects will en-
ploy great armies of laborers, who must be
clothed and fed, and who need tools, there
is fair reason to expect that those who stick
to legitimate industrial occupations and
avoid mere speculation have before them
period Of ''good times"
But along with these new enterprises, q
few Of which we have named, there appears
a sudden abundance of mining and other
extremely speculative enterprises, which
tempt men to invest their means by
the promise of extraordinary profits.
1t is against such hazardous VEN
lures as these last that We desire
once more to warn our readers and
that spectators should be among the ear
Hest to take advantage of the general revival
of confidence and the new spirit Of adven-
ture. They have waited anxiously and
with empty pockets during six long years
for the moment which seems to them
now at hand. They see Legitimate
enterprises starting up all over the
country, and they hasten to put their
schemes in with the rest. There are
daily bulletins of new and always richer
mineral discoveries; and, as during the flush
times of 1S66-6s, the petroleum craze nb-
sorbed millions of money, so now new
mining craze threatens to engulf the hard
savings of large part of the community.
If all the silver reported Sin sight were
really there silver ought to fall to about the
price of brass, and stockholders would have
to take their dividends in unstable bars.
There is no doubt at all that while great
multitude of fortunes have changed hands
in the last six or seven years, and there has
been much suffering and impoverishment
of individuals, on the whole the country
has saved great deal of money. 1t has
lived economically; it has had q sue
cession of good harvests and has sold
them at good prices; it has wasted little or
nothing in new. Improbable or untimely
enterprises, and under the circumstances
stoppage of industry, must amount to a
pretty penny. Moreover, the long stagna-
ton, affecting mainly manufactures, has
had the benefcent effect of impel-
ling large numbers of our people to
the land. The sales of new lands in 1878
to actual settlers are said to amount to the
prodigious quantity Of over twenty mill
lions of acres, which would denote set
Element on these lands OF nearly quarter
of million of people, who have thus
become producers OF food and consumers
OF manufactures-an important addition to
| the home market
Whoever has managed to lay by little
money has now the opportunity to fling
it away in speculation. On every hand
citizens are invited to become suddenly
wealthy by putting their means in mining
and other speculative ventures. We advise
everybody to steer clear of such things.
There is no doubt money to be made in
mines, but it will be pocketcd not by the
cradulous pubIic lint by the ncute pontle-