Year: 1878

If, as the old proverb says, "misery loves
company" Americans may derive liberal
amount of consolation from the fact that the
trials and tribulations embraced under the
general name of "hard times, are even more
severe on the other side of the ocean than
here. From every country in Europe, France
only excepted, comes complaints of business
stagnation, tight money market, locked up
capital, unemployed labor, bankruptcies large
and small, and all the various legitimate and
and illegitimate results of sharp financial
pressure. France-thanks to the peculiar
character of her productions and the indomita-
BILE energy and unAagging industry of her
people-enjoys prosperity for which Ger.
many would gladly exchange the empty glo'
ry achieved by the sword. Germany, indeed,
is learning to her sorrow that it is easier to
organize victory in the field than to organize
economy in the several departments Of gov
ernment and that it is quite possible for q
victorious nation to become poor, while the
vanquished nation grows rich. The purse 10
these days is mightier than the musket, and
the laurels won at Sedan are not half as valu.
able as the wine or silk crop of France. 9th
er continental communities are suffering from
the same disease which af1icts Germany q
disease so widely spread that it cannot be at
tributed to mere local causes altogether, but
must be regarded as sort of commercial cpl
demic-the natural and inevitable conse.
uuence of violated commercial laws.


But it is in Great Britain, just now, that
the hard times are the hardest, are doing the
most damage, and promising even worse things
hereafter. The daily kilograms from Lon
don indicate an excitement in business circles
amounting almost to panic, and the tone of
the financial articles in the Times during the
past week is more gloomy and discouraging
than at any previous period that we remem.
Der. Of course some of this is due to the COL
lapse of the Glasgow bank and its disastrous
fruits in and out of Scotland but if the 6nan-
cal sky were clear elsewhere, the breakdown
of single rotten concern, however destructive
to public confidence and private fortunes,
would occasion no such general alarm. There
are clouds all over that sky, sufficiently dense
to rouse the gravest fears. The wholesale re-
duction in the wages of operatives, and the
announcement of other reductions in the i'm
mediate future, show that the great manu-
featuring establishments see the approaching
storm and are preparing for it. And the
great manufacturing establishments will be
fortunate if they can continue to run on short
time and lower wages. Many of them, it is
believed, must suspend operations entirely,
and with small prospect of resuming. The
fact of the matter is that what has hitherto
been the largest and best market for British
products, is gradually closing its doors against
them-for the simple and sufficient reason
of home production. That market is the
United States. American genius and enter
prise have beaten our British cousins on their
own ground. We now supply them with as
many lines of goods as they supply US, and
each year is putting the balance more in our
favor. In less than twenty years. if things 60
on as they are now going, the American mar