New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1889-07-17
MnIrcLNESS nEPRESSION.o

"The present depression in business" a
phrase which one sees almost every day IN
some journals-what does it mean? Partly
ignorance and partly craftsmanship For the
volume of business is not depressed" but IS
larger than it has been in any previous year
The payments made through all clearing
Houses outside of New Orll during the IRIS
half of 1889 exceeded the payments during the
first half of 1888 by 1O.8 per cent. If it be
supposed that payments at Boston, Philadelphia
and Chicago were swellcd by mere Specuia-
ton, yet the transactions at the remaining
cities show an increase of per cent. Nearly
the whole of the payments are made at twenty
two cities. where the volume of business thus
measured has this year been 81 per cent great
or than in 1880, and greater than in any other
wear Therefore it cannot be said that there
is depression in business as respects the vol
ume of transactions"
Two branches Of manufacture have been I'M
favorably affected of late, the woollen by eX-
cessive importationS, and the iron by sudden
decrease in consumption. The decisions Of a
Democratic Administration, contrary to the
controlling intent of the act which that Ad-
ministration profeSsed to interpret, were the
chief cause Of such depression as exists in the
woollen manufacture, and those decisions have
been reversed. The excess Of production over
consumption Of iron is mainly due to the de-
cline in railroad building In 1887 the build
ing of new railroads required about ,3OO,OOO
tons Of rails during the first half OF 1859 only
l.4lO miles Of railroad have been built, re-
curing about al zoo tons Of rails. In con-
sequence, notwithstanding great increase In
the consumption Of iron in other uses, the gen
era demand for iron has diminished. AT the
same time there has been an astonishingly rapid
increase in production, out of all proportion to
any reasonably expected increase in consump-
ton. In part this expansion was due to spec
ulatiye operations in real estate, but in the
main to the rapid development of new sources
Of supply at the South.
If there is neither depression in the volume
of business as a whole, nor in any permanent
sense in the two industries mentioned, what do
Democratic journals mean by constantly re-
peating the phase? Is it merely cheap ap-
peal to prejudice-an effort by persistent re-
iteration to create the popular notion that gen
era misfortune has followed change of Ad-
ministration The workingmen throughout
the country are not TO be thus deceived, for
they are aware that, except in the two indus
tries named, they have on the whole better
wages than they received in any past year and
in iron and woollen works there has been only
a moderate reaction in wages at only a part Of
the works. Labor is on the whole better en-
ployed than usual, and evidence of the fact
NAV be seen in the records showing that strikes
are fewer and less serious than in other years.
The notion of general DEPRESSION so far as it
is not one of partisan origin, seems TO grow out
Of a consciousness that products are remark
ably cheap. That fact helps every consumer.
Ii swells the wages Of every wage-earner. But
is it properly called " depression in business"
Let il be remembered that prices of farm and
other bulky products If there had been abso-