Year: 1878

Trade.


The cable dispatches from Glasgow and
London printed in the HERALD yesterday
and to-day convey q gloomy impression of
the misgiving and distrust which prevail
in all the business centres of Great Britain.
The British public does not recover from
the shock caused by the failure OF the
Bank of the City of Glasgow and although
the failures of great business firms which
have followed have not yet been so numer-
GUS as was apprehended they have sufficed
to unsettle confidence and to create an un-
easy feeling that the worst has not come.
The remarkable article in the London Times
from which we published copious extracts
yesterday will rather increase anxiety
than allay it in spite Of its tranquil
lizing aim. The very necessity for SO
earnest protest against alarm attests the
existence of widely diffused feeling of dis
comfort and distrust. The medicine is too
strong TO be administered for slight NAL
ady. The Times warns the public .to pre-
pare to meet new shocks, as the Glasgow
collapse has started movement which will





institution throughout the kingdom. A
trying time lies before all banking and
financial interests, and every department
Of commerce may be subj to embar-
rassment md alarm. /"


These are, indeed, ominous words. and.
appearing in the leading public journal,
they cannot have been lightly uttered. The
real foundation for anxiety does not lie so
much in the great Glasgow failure and the
ruin Of firms which depended on it as in
the general state of British trade at the
period when this calamity falls upon
il. The storm strikes . ship which
has been wrenched by a long voy-
age in rough seas. and which has been
weakened by much straining of its timbers.
A battered or partially disabled vessel
easily goes to pieces in q gale which q
stanch vessel which had not been long
beaten by the waves might ride out in
safety. The last four or five years have
been period Of struggle in every branch
Of British trade and industry. The
consequence is that all the weaker
establishments, whether industrial or
commercial or financial, have been
compelled to strain their credit to
the utmost in the hope of keeping their
heads above water until the return Of better
times. But the better times have not come,
and there are as yet no signs Of their ap-
proach. All British interests suffer from
that '.hope deferred which maketh tho
heart sick" In such state of things there
is great danger that confidence may be
utterly prostrated if there should come even
one other such collapse as that of the Bank
of the City Of Glasgow. As the Times
says, with great justice:-"The present or
deal comes at q time when commerce is
weakened by prolonged period Of depres-
sion and cheered by few signs or none Of q
revival Of prosperity. The Board of Trade
returns for September fail to yield the
smallest comfort respecting the great indus
tries Of tho country. The imports of cot
ton, fax and hemp have fallen of, while
the exports of cotton piece goods, linen,
jute, the manufactures of iron, steel, hard
ware and cutlery have declined in quantity
and value, especially in value"


The people Of this country have the
strongest reasons for deprecating the down.
fall of British prosperity. Great Britain is
our most valuable and best paying GUS
toner, and her trade cannot suffer without
bringing injury to ours.