Year: 1874

The country is now beginning tc


receive some compensation for the


prostration of business by the panic


of last September, and its consequen


ces. What it's results to trade were,
are too well known to needrehearsal


but what is to come seems as yet To


be only vaguely appreciated. 1t has


been remarked that the mercantile
interests of the country stood the
shock to credit and the prostration
of business better than could reason
ably be anticipated Thereason ofthis
was that back of them stood a pros


porous agricultural inter, st, which,
being able to pay either in money or
produce sustained the merchants,
and thus the means for a general
liquidation of debts was found, which
prevented greater or longer con-
tinued depression than actually oc-
CURED. This payment of debts to
the amount of many millions, prob
ably itwould be safe to say hundred
millions of dollars, reduced the de
mand for discounts all over the coun


try to a proportionate amount, for
money is always in greater demand
when there is a greater imitation of
credits. The fall in prices of mer
chandise and securities had similar
effect, for it required less means to
transact the same volume of business
in them. These two items, the re-
duction in credits and the fall of
prices, have the same effect as an
imitation of the currency, and it only
required that conf lence should be
restored, so that boarded moneys
should come back into the channels
of trade, to make apparent the work
ing of the law of compensation,
Now confidence is restored, and while
there is a disposition on the part of
business men everywhere to work
upon a safe and conservative basis,
it is becoming daily more apparent
that there will be full recovery in
prices of nearly all kinds of merchan
disc and securities, and the prota
bilities, perhaps it would not be too
strong to say that the certainties,
are, that the reaction from the ex-
treme depression will be so great as
to carry prices as much above their
normal level as they have been below
it. There is an accumulation of
money in all of the larger centres
which must find employment, and
the rates of discount have declined
to so>low point that borrowers who
have sustained their credit during
the past few months, being urgel to
take it, will employ it in their business
when they see their way to do SO
proftably. Manufacturers are starting
tLeir idle machinery all over the coun
try, labor is obtaining employment,
tie tillers of the soil are enabled to
sell their produce atincreased prices.
and sooH the consumption of all
articles will resume its wonted pro
portions. The imitation of the cur
rency accelerates this movement,
which, however, is sufficiently rapid
for the best interest of the country
without it, and this will only carry
the matter too far for a sound and
healthful development.


With the productive interests of
the country in a sound condition
generally, with the West in posses
sion of large crops OR the proceeds of
them, with the South marketing a
large crop of cotton at remunerativ>
prices, with the mercantile class re
covered or rapidly recovering
from the shock of the panic, and
with the banks possessed of the abil-
ity to furnish the needed facilities
for trade, we see no reason why the
year which we have just entered up
on should not be one of exceptions
nrosneritv in a husiness point of view