The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-05-19
THE NATIONAL FINANCES.
American Prosperity Threatened by q
Democratic Administration.


The financial situation continues ex-
tremeIy critical, and with good reason.
The opposition to the republican sill
yer law of 1890 lays the blame of the
present financial distress upon that
enactment, apparently utterly regard
less of the 5000, 900, 900 adverse trade
balance against the United States dur
ing the last twelve months. 1t does
not require the most profound financier
to know that if the United States buys
yearly 5000. 200. 900 more than it sells, it
must pay for that 5000, coo, 900 either in
gold or in securities of this country
purchased abroad. The enactment of a
silver law does not in any way affect
this fact. We have been exporting gold
because Europe has not been able to
take a sufficient number of our securi-
ties to make up the deficiency 10 the
trade balance.
We say Europe has not been able
rather than is unwilling. The sale of
American securities in Europe has been
slight during the past two years, not
because of any inherent weakness in
those securities, but owing to the fnan-
cial weakness of Europe itself. The
Barring crash in the fall of 1890 has not
spent its force, and the great convul-
sions of the past month in Australia
have brought ruin to thousands at the
great money center of the world-Lon-
don. For three years the United States
has been the backbone of the financial
situation Of the world.
Ithas supplied the European countries
with gold; it has maintained its own
credit; it has continued to develop and
prosper when elsewhere there has been
nothing but weakness, which does not
seem to abate-
At the present juncture, however. the
United States is confronted with DEM
ocratic president and democratic con-
gress, pledged to an abolition of pro-
tective duties and a consequent greater
increase in imports than ever before.
When the Fifty-third congress meets,
if it passes a tariff bill framed in ac-
cordance with the provisions of the
Chicago platform, the imports into this
country will become larger than they
are even to-day. the adverse trade bal
ance will become greater and the efflux
of gold greater than it is at the present
time. The people of the United States
could not be cursed with a free trade
tariff at any time when its effect would |
be more severe than at present The |
prospective repeal of the silver law of |
1890 will not relieve the situation in the |
least, but will rather increase the strin-
gency of money.
There are two favorable conditions, !
however, which may serve to alleviate !
the serious condition of affairs. One |
is the incoming of a large number |
of foreigners to attend the worlds |
fair. who will bring with them into |
this country and spend here no |
small sum The other is the fact |
that the worlds fair viii prevent the |
usual large egress of American tourists |
20 Europe, taking with them a sum |
which has been va-iously estimated |
from 500, OOO. 600 to $3.50, OOO, 900 yearly. |
The fair doubtless will be source of /
strength 70 America during the year /
1893, but the specter OF the tariff of /
1916, which can be seen dinly as yet, l
but which as time goes on becomes :
more distinct and more hideous il its 1
proportions, menaces the business hori- |
ION OF the future--Albany Journal