Year: 1874

WHAT TIE COUNTRY ASKS OF CONGRESS.


The business world is like the great world
of which it is a part. 1t is not simple, but
vastly complex. 1t is the custom to speak of
| it as an entirety and, like an individual, sub
ject to periods of prosperity and adversely.
| In general this language is perfectly proper,
but in periods of transition from bad times to
an average state all interests are not affected
at once nor do they all move together. 1t Is
now an accepted fact among those accustomed
| to watch the state of trade III Great Britain
that abundant harvests are favorable to the
| business interests of the United Kingdom,
while a succession of short crops never fails
to bring hard times. And yet low
price of wheat must be just as bad for
those in England who produce wheat
as it is for our Western farmers. For the
first week in November the average price of
the English wheat sold at $50 market towns,
when compared with the same week in 1873,
shows a fall of more than twenty-five per
| cent, while the difference in the prices OF
wheat at Milwaukee at the same dates is only
fifteen per cent. This is quite sufficient to
show that our Western farmers, even in the
wheat-growing States, have no peculiar hard
|
prices for their pork and Indian corn, while
cotton cloth, wooden goods, and most of the
articles they buy at the stores have fallen
in greater proportion than their grain. They
certainly have no ground of complaint against
the currency, for gold sold here four years
ago, in November, 1870, for 10; in November,
| 1871, it was as low as 1l0s; i'll November, 1872,
it was 1l1s; in November, 1873, its highest
price was 11Oi, while last week it ranged
| from 111s to 112s. What reason is there, then,
why tho currency should be further depre-
ciated for the benefit OF the Western farmer
| Why il he so often represented as In need OF
"relicf7' 1t strikes us that many OF the
evils from which he is said to suffer must be
entirely imaginary. We are sure Senator Nor
, ton and the lnhltionists in Congress do not
represent the sober, steady-golng, conserya-
tive farmers, when they vote for Imitation,
"rcleasing bank reserves" and such like
folics.


Another important fact in any consideration
of the state of business in this country, is that
the prices of many important articles in Amer
ica are fixed by their values in England. Cot
ton wheat, lard tallOw, pork, bacon, cheese,
and petroleum are examples. Whether this





we do not enter. 1t is indsputable that it is
so. Other things being equal, a low price of
wheat in England is favorable to increased
consumption, and therefore to higher prices
for all the other articles above named. We
need hardly remind reader of TIE TRIBUNE
that our commerce with Great Britain is
immense-almOst as much as with all other
foreign countries put together. 1t is therefore
| a most favorable circumstance for the future OF
business in the United States when the tendency
of the trade we carry on with the United
Kingdom is toward Improvement, and such is
now the fact Take the single article of
cotton. The annual average value of our ex-
ports of this staple for the last five years has
exceeded two hundred million dollars, or
| more than Onc-third of our entire exports. III
the foreign manufacturers who buy our cotton
cannot sell their goods, it is plain that the
price of cotton must fall. A good harvest
greatly Guickens the consumption of cotton
goods throughout the world, and especially in
England. We have before lis the returns of
the English Board Of Trade of the exports of
cotton goods from the United Kingdom for
the first ten months of the current
wear. The total of piece goods shows an


increase from 2,9ii million yards in 1873
TO 300 million yards i'll 1874. But in the
single month of October the increase was from
| 3t1 million yards to 343 millions, or more than
| ten per cent. We must remember that the
| influence of cheaper food in Europe has
hardly yet had time to make itself felt. 1t is
also TO be considered that the above figures
relate only to the British exports. There
must also have been, or must soon be, great
increase in the consumption ot cotton goods
| in Great Britain. Which is most likely to re-


lieye the South, an increased issue of paper
money, or increased consumption of her
staple by the whole commercial world 7 The
only genuine "relief' is in the latter Inha-
ton may poison, but it cannot cure.


Without entering further into the compli-
Gated subject Of prices, certain it is that if
the favorable prospects of our foreign trade,
and the cessation of wasteful and unproduc-
tive expenditures at home, together with the
natural tendency Of such diseases to cure them
selves in q country like this, do not speedily
work an improvement in business it will be
because the laws of sound finance have been
disregarded more persistently and outrageousy
than is commonly supposed. But even
| if they have been, we are on the right
road to health. The farmers and la
borers will make fatal mistake if they
countenance any such quackery as Initiation or
the stupid expedient of increasing the Public
Debt two or three hundred millions in order
to lavish that amount on public works. If we
are not now the most prosperous people the
sun ever looked down upon it is not for the
lack of mortgages, taxes, and liberal public
expenditures. We trust that Congressman are