The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-01-02
---------- THE 0UiLOOK FOR BUSINESS.
A Newspaper Man Points Out the cause
 of the Weakness of Trade.

of the Weakness of Trade.
 John C. Freund in Music Trades.1 What I write to-day is from that personal observation which is the sur est guide of all
 I find my estimate of the course Of events more than confirmed by the tes- timony of the hundreds l have con- versed with in the last six weeks, in 8 stretch of territory covering from Bos- ton in the east to Washington and cin- cinnat west and south. I have seen that which makes me denounce any attempt to talk Of bloom, D or even a fair revival of trace, as an outrage on the credulity Of the people, as well as gross attempt to mislead them.
 All last summer and up to the early fall the democratic papers have been telling us of the great revival in ousl- ness, of busy factories and mills that have started up again,
 IL is a falsehood, all the greater be cause there is just a grain of truth in it.
 A little more business is being done than last fall. but at closer figures than last fall Collections are universally complained of, showing that people are still unable to pay for what they have bought, without even a thought of be- ing able to buy anything more.
 The condition of the national house. keeping with it's persistent deficit, which it is now proposed to meet by new tax on beer and cheeks, is a faith full representation of the average mans housekeeping.
 The great mass of the wage earners are still either unemployed or working at poor wages.
 The starting up of mills and facto- ries, here and there at wages far below those of g is, l really admit, a good sign, but this will but give the wage earners enough to eat; it will not pay the debts accumulated by them during the past two years; and even if the wages are good enough to enable them to pay their debts, it will be some years before these. wage earners will have paid them and have any purchasing power for new things.
 And if there Is anything which would desire to impress upon those who do me the honor 10 read what I write, 1t is that the whole of our social, com mercial and financial stability rests ab- solutely on the consuming capacity of the common man.
 The millionaire has q million more than the common man. but he doesn't eat more steak more coffee, more bread!
 And it is by the consumption of the great staples that the wheels of com- merce are set going, so that the tide they propel at last reaches you and me.
 As have urged again and again. the wage earner is not merely to be tonsid- cred as an item of expense in the pro- duction and handling of commodities; he is to be considered as constituting so per cent. of the purchasing power of the country.
 And the root of all our trouble is that the wage eafner has no purchasing power to-day; indeed, worse than that, he has two years debts to pay off be- fore he will have any.
 The miserable democratic policy of cheap things" has given us the cheap man. who is no use to himself, his fam ily or his country, because he has no purchasing power, and consequently cannot consume even his proper, fair share of the staples, not to dream of the comforts or luxuries of life.
 What Is the use of manufacturers making goods, and dealers buying