The Portland daily press., 1895-07-25

Guiding mortgages, instead of having, let
us say, one-third of the wealth of the
country, has now tWo-thirds of 1T.
So great has been the decline in property
of all kinds connected with industrial. .un-
dertakiDgs, that during the last twenty
years its value has gone DOWN. speak
more particularly of the principal trades
in the north of England-50 per cent,
but the mortgages on it remain the same
That is the cardinal question at issue.
The effects OF an appreciating standard
Is lntolerable in a commercial country.
1t produces such discouargement, loss
after loss arises from the Investment of
capital till at last no one will invest,
and that is the reason why the rate of in
trest on money is now only one-half per
cent. No surer proof could be given Of
the depression of trade than the fact that
masses of capital cannot be employed for
more than One-half per cent. 1t shows
the great decline that has taken place in
the spirit of enterprise in this country,
and it is the result of twenty years of
heavy losses on the part of the industrial
classes. If we had allowed all the silver
as we'll as the gold to pour into the
worlds reservoir in the last twenty years,
we should not have had anything ap-
proaeh1ng the present decline in prices.
Which is the better and the wiser policy?
This is a matter which, in the last re-
suit, should be decided on great ques-
tions of national policy, and on what is
best Tor the country as a whole. 1t is not
a question of what is best for the few
millionaires in London, whose money is
lent out in the form of gold, and who
have derived great personal advantage.
The interest of thirty eight millions of
people should come first. I will quote a
sentence which appears to me to put the
case SO clearly that do not think any
one can fail to see the force of it. Here
is what Hume says of the effect on a
country of steady increase of money,
such an effect as was produced in the six
teenth and seventeenth centuries by the
influx of gold and silver from South
America "We find that in every king
dom in to which money begins to flow in
greater abundance than formerly every
thing takes new phase Labor and in
dustry gain life; the merchant becomes
more skillful, and the farmer follows his
plough with greater alacrity and atten-
tion. That is what I call healthy
state OF things, and we enjoyed it in this
country from 1850 to 1878. Under the
influence of the great increase of the. pro-
ductlon of gold, combined with the pro-
duotion of silver, we had steady rise in
prices, and one Of the most fourishing
periods of trade ever known. The fail
ures of bank in 1857 and 1866 were but
monetary spasms; they passed away in
short time. But what we have had now
for many years past may be called a
wasting consumption. A far greater
number of people have been suffering
during the depressed times through
which we have been passing, with prices
falling, than during the brief spasms
which occurred in the midst of periods of
great activity, such as the pauics of 1857
and 1866. The industrial organism of the
country in those periods was stimulated
to the highest activity, and no doubt, be-
ing stimulated overmuch drought about
those sharp and short crises, but for
twenty years we have been Fsuffering
from wasting consumption. We have
been afflicted with ssatrophy, and the
sufferings of the industrial classes have
been more widespread and general of late
years than during the short panics re-
ers, and which entirely passed away, as a
rule, in the course of year or two.