Year: 1875

s'Financia1 and Commcrcial."


cial and Commercial" .in the daily news
papers Of this city cannot fail to be struck
by the ominous similarity Of each mornings
report of the transactions of the previous
day. Either ''great dulness prevailed in the
dealings throughout the day or .'the stock
market was rallied this morning" but ''closed
weak and irregular = and it must be ex-
tremely irritating to those patient souls who
last winter prophesied an active summer,
and last summer were confident that busi-
ness would reappear with cold weather, to
''stand and wait with lessening prospects of
any revival of stock speculation and its
attendant profits and evils.


These conditions are not only the natural
sequence of violent and unnatural specula-
ton, but they are the healthiest and most
cheering signs of the return Of capital and
trade to the channels of the legitimate busi-
ness of the country.


The war and the enormous issues of paper
money resulting from its prosecution, its
duration and it's cost, brought about-in a
lesser degree, perhaps-a condition of So
ciety analogous to that produced in France
by the pernicious influence of John Law on
the regent Philippe d'Orleans; except that
in that case the reigns of Louis XIV. and
Louis XIV. had depleted the country and left
France without commerce, without agricul-
ture and without resources, so that the mo-
ment speculation halted confidence was de-
stroyed and the entire fabric crumbled to
nothing.


In the United States the greenbacks, paid
out SO lavishly by the government for con-
tracts or for payment of the troops, rapidly
found their way to the money centres of the
country and not only produced the widest
forms of stock speculation and bubble enter
prises, but stimulated the establishment of
factories, rolling mills and every organized
form of industry for which the government
offered q ready and lucrative market.


We are now only repeating the well worn
history of every country that has been at war.
Stock speculation and legitimate commerce
are now alike going through the inevitable
and long reaction consequent upon, in the
one case, the reckless watering" of stocks,
the almost unlimited issues of bonds called
by sad misnomer securities and the estab-
lishment Of speculative companies which
never had single rdiSon d etre and in the
other case upon the vast overproduction of
goods alike unneeded and unmarketable.


These wild speculations of the war at
tracted to the Stock Exchange and its sur
roundings numbers of persons from all
classes of society eager to participate in the
large fortunes SO easily gained, the roll of
its members was more than doubled, an
epoch set in when money was the only good,
all the efforts of intelligence, all the plots of
rascality were in motion for its acquisition,
and the corruptions of the time introduced q
number of artificial necessities which led in
their turn to the defalcations and robberies,
public and private, which are generally clas-
sifed by the delicate euphemism OF breach
of confidence.


The commerce Of the country, its ever in
creasing exports and the credit enjoyed by
the United States abroad, havs prevented or
palliated the ruin that followed Laws fnan-
cial operations, but the same process of slow
return to sound principles must be gone
through with and suffered. Railroads must
be managed for the public good and not for
the benefit of the stockholders alone the
mountains of worthless bonds must find their
last melancholy resting place, and the num-
Der of those operators who look to the daily
fluctuations of stocks to gain a precarious
living will be sadly reduced before healthy
stratum OF confidence and restoration of
sound business can be reached. 1t is an
acknowledged fact to-day that this number
is about double that required to execute the
real transactions of Broad street; and it will
be found then, on the Darwinian theory, the
Stock Exchange will be regenerated by the
survival of the fttest. The remainder must
probably cease to be consumers until they
can return to their old trades and become
in some form producers.


A PERTINENT QUESTION initiating
members of the secret society of the o. A. u.
among the VOWS imposed upon the candi-