Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-03-07

Circuits QlQ 1QCerVeneu uQQer WHICH payments
were deferred and specie as measure of value
and regulator of trade was practically ignored.
Everything moved smoothly and apparently pros
perously as long as credits could be established
and continued but as soon as payments were de-
manded and specie was in requistion distrust COM
menced and collapse ensued In these instances
the expansions preceded and contraction followed
the suspension, but it will be recollected that while
the waves were rising specie ceased to be regu-
lator by reason of credit system which prevented
the use of it.
Now, with all due respect to Mr. Blaine, /
express the opinion that the apparent pros
perity which preceded the revulsion of 1887
and the real prosperity which preceded the
crisis of 1857 were not caused by the tariff,
and that the reverses which followed were
not attribute BILE to its reduction. If the tariff
was in any measure instrumental in produc-
ing the changes it was in stimulating the ex-
pansion which terminated in disaster. In 1857
was believer in the tariff, and it never en-
tered my head to attribute the financial
trouble of that year to the changes to which
it had been subjected.
THE FINANCIAL TROUBLES OF 1878.
The most pressing duty which had to per-
form when became secretary of the treasury
in 1865 was to provide the means to pay the
soldiers and to meet other pressing demands
upon the treasury. This was done in the only
way it could be done-by the sale of tempo
rary obligations which had proved to be at
tractive to investors After this had been
accomplished the work of funding these obi
cations was commenced and carried success
fully on until the whole amount-some thir-
teen hundred millions of dollars-were con-
verified into bonds While this work was
going on I was under constant apprehension
of a financial crisis before it could be COM
pleted. My apprehension was unfounded,
but only as to time. The crisis was postponed,
and for SO long a period that the opinion
generally prevailed that the vitality and pro-
ductive power of the country were so great
that the most expensive war that had ever
been waged could be concluded and great ex-
pansion of credit could be checked and
abridged without financial disturbances.
have to confess that this was my own opin-
ion, but the same causes which produced the
crisis Of 1857 were at work, and, as had al
ways been the case, the revulsion came when
least expected.
When left London in September, 1878, to
come to the United States, the financial skies,
if not cloudfess, were not threatening The
letters which were received by the London
firm from it's New York partners were en-
couraging; and l had no reason to expect
anything but a pleasant visit to my old home,
and a return to London under suspicious cir
cumstances. But on the arrival of the steam
ship in the outer harbor I was met by the
stunning intelligence that my American part
ners and the correspondents of the Fort
Wayne banking house, in which I was inter
ested, had failed; that all the banks except
the Chemical bank, which had weathered all
storms, had suspended, and that one of the
widest panics which had ever occurred was
raging throughout the country The crisis
was terrible one. Although it came unex-
pectedly, it was only the consummation of
influences which had been long at work be-
meath the financial horizon. In extent, in
fierceness and disaster it resembled the revul-
sion of 1857. It was not, as Mr.. Blaine states,
brought about by the losses sustained in the
civil war, which had been terminated eight
years before, nor by the destructive fires in
Chicago and Boston. Great losses may bring
1t was produced by an expansion of currency
and of credits, which fostered speculation,
which rarely fail to terminate in financial
trouble.
PRESENT CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY
and according to Mr.. Blaine the country, and
the whole country, under its benefcent infu-
ence ought to be highly prosperous. The
circulating medium is abundant. Interest is
lower than ever before known. Good rail-
road and municipal 4 per cent. bonds COM
mand premium; those of the United States
are in demand at 1874, and yet what is the
condition of that great interest which under
oil i,,fo in,
teresta What are good farming lands worth
In Mr.. Blaine's own state, in Vermont, in
New Hampshire, in all the eastern states?
How do prices of farming lands in the middle
states compare with the selling prices Of such
lands when the tariff was light in comparison
with what it is at the present time? If the
condition of the farming interest in these
states is the result of the increase of cult
waited acres in the new states and the lessened
rates of transportation, how happens it that
in all these great grain producing states the
farmers who are as well off at the close of the
year as they were at the beginning are the
exceptions?
If protection is the benefcent policy that
it is represented to be by Mr.. Blaine, how
happens it that even manufacturers are not
happy? How happens it that combinations
are formed by them to curtal production
and maintain high pricesa Are the consumers
of manufactured goods benefited by legisla-
ton that prevents foreign competition and
enables the favored few to regulate prices for
their own advantage? Is a country really
prosperous when cities, which are the con-
sumers of wealth, are rapidly growing and
farming lands are decreasing in value: when
rents In cities are enormously high and ex-
cellent farms are not attractive to tenants at
rentals not equal to 6 per cent. interest on
half their appraised value?
| asked the keeper of little shop, about
fifteen feet wide and thirty feet deep, on
Pennsylvania avenue, in Washington, what
rent he was paying, "Three hundred dollars
a month"; he replied; ':S3, 900 a year" Now,
1 venture to say that there is not farm in
Maryland or Virginia, no matter what may
be its size and the cost of its improvements,
that rents for half that sum. Nothing is
clearer than that the wealth producing power
Of the country is not in healthy and pros
porous condition.
In all this unfortunately differ not only
with Mr.. Blaine, but with Mr. Depew, who is
reported as saying in recent interview that
the condition of the country is ''superb;' that
so enormous were the last years crops that
the great east and west railroad lines have
more wheat and corn and beef to be taken to
the seaboard than they can carry. This may
be true. Well managed roads are doing well,
50 well that one Of the greatest lines can
spare its president from his post Of official
duty to enlighten the people by his eloquent
speeches upon the beauties of protection and
other subjects, and at the same time declare
liberal dividends. But how is it with the
farmers, by whose productive labor the rail
roads are supporteda Are they satisfied with
the present and hopeful for the futurea If
Mr.. Depew will extend his tours to Minnesota
and Iowa and Kansas and Nebraska he will
discover that, although they are the most
fertile states in the Union, Ghe condition of
their people is far from being superb" He
will discover also in travelling over the coun-
try, if he keeps his eyes open, that it is the
middlemen, the men who handle the agrioul-
tnral productions, and the railroads that are
making money, while the producers are una
BILE to make ''both ends meet" no matter how
industrious and economical they may be- The
keeper of stall in Washington market
makes more money in buying, cutting up and
selling an OK than the farmer receives for
raising it. This may be superb for the stall
keeper, but not exactly superb for the farmer.
A MISTAKEN ARGUMENT.
A good part of Mr.. Blaine's article is taken