Year: 1878

q new and great era Of prosperity. Ihey
are not always able to give definite or de-
tailed reasons for this belief, but in general
they say that the period of contraction Is
substantially at an end; that prices OF COM
wages of the present day better for those
who receive them than were the high wages
of the period of imitation; that there are
abundant evidences Of a somewhat rapid
growth of our foreign commerce.; that the
country has been enriched by the large
crops of several years past, sold in general
at good prices; that the people have Mt last
submitted to habits Of economy, which tell
very rapidly in increasing the sum
of the national wealth that the re-
distribution OF property, which has
caused SO much suffering, is now almost
completed, or, to put it in more
homely phrase, the Sheriff has almost fin
ished his work; and that, unless the next
Congress should commit some striking folly
to plunge us back into the mornss, the
country is really on the upward way.


We believe this reasoning is in the main
correct. It is an undeniable fact, shown by
official statistics, that the production OF all
necessaries of life food. fuel and clothing
has actually and largely increased during
the last ten years. Low prices have pre-
vented great dividends or striking profts,
but low prices are an advantage to the mass
of men who labor for wages. The redistrl-
button Of property arising out OF the failure
of rash speculations and ventures is not yet
complete, but nearly so. The tendency
of the more energetic part OF our
urban population to the land is in
creasing and is one OF the most
healthful and promising signs for the fu-
ture, as is also the other fact that our mer-
chants and manu- utacturers are at last thor
oughly awake to the necessity Of largely in
creasing our foreign trade. Agents of
American houses are engaged in creating
demand for our manufactures in dista mt
markets at this time in far greater numbers
than at any period since 1860; and If the
next Congress will only give the country
free ships we shall see ut once rapid and
enormously beneficial stimulus given to the
sale of our products in other countries, and
Americans will regain what was accounted
one of our glories before the war-the great
and profitable carrying trade we lost by the
war; We notice that Mr.. Edward Atkinson,
who is one Of the highest authorities
on the subject, because he is n
careful and extremely we'll informed OBJ
server, and by no means an optimist, con-
ours in the opinion that the country is on
the upward turn. Mr.. Atkinson foretold in
1869 accurately what would be the result of
the paper money imitation and speculation
Of that period. 'Contraction," he wrote Mt
that time, "until our currency comes to
the standard which regulates itself-that j.
the specie standard cost what 1t will and
hurt whom it may, is the only cure; if it
does not come through voluntary legislation
it will come through involuntary bank
ruptcy." The experience of tho country
during the dreary years since 1873 has COM
pletely justified these words /; and it is the
more cheerful to find that he who wrote
vival of prosperity is at hand. He looks for
rising prices on a gold standard and for
restoration of confidence, and he insists on
the fact which the HERALD has often pointed
out, that we are suffering not from want
but from plethora-we have more tools and
materials Of industry than we can use under
our present system.


He seems to as to prove conclusively that
we have already made up. and more than
made up, the losses of the war, and even of
the succeeding and disastrous period Of in
fation and speculation. But he points out
that in a time of universal economy and re-
trenchment the middlemen, the retailers,
who became unduly numerous during the
imitation period, find themselves, to large
extent, flung out ; and these need to accom-
molate themselves to the new and better
order of things they must become pro-
ducers or else suffer want and distress.


Mr.. Atkinson holds that "the limit of the
fall of prices has been reached and that in
the practical disappearance OF the so-called
premium on gold we have evidence that our
normal commercial relations with the world
are about restored" Congress has ad-
journed, doing far less harm than was
feared, and there is reason to believe that
the short session between next December
and March will make no changes in either
the tariff or the currency laws. In that case
merchants and man nuiacturcrs have clear
eighteen months in which to pursue their
business, without foar of disturbing legisla-
ton, which is an unmixed benefit ut this
somewhat critical juncture, when what is
mainly needed is restoration of confidence,
for which fixed laws are SO necessary that even
bad laws are for the moment moro tolerable
than changing and uncertain legislation.
The Treasury is on the whole in satisfac-
tory condition, and Secretary Sherman has
won the confidence OF the country by his
firm hand in managing the currency. Many
experienced men do not agree with his