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Show 1874. I An Industrial and Financial Beviow of tba Yej The Tecdttiicy of National i tv.au, I , The year t&71 opened with a gene-1 Ml il pftawiou of commercial and ' nmnufactitriiiii industrica, the result 1 0 the great financial panic of the 1 previous September, which ship- 1 wrecked the fortunes of many thou- 1 gauds of peti'plo, largely minced the 1 Yakiea of all description!) of property, cloned the avenues of employment for mechanic uul artiz-ma and stranded thousands ol tiiniliod upon the nauds Of poverty and dpair. Tho winter hud already not in, and thero wore murmurs of discontent heard in all our cities, a. id tho eflorti of charitable charit-able associations and individuals were tested to the utmost to relievo the wants of the tillering poor. Generally Gener-ally these elTijrts were successful and the winter passed of! without serious disturbances. In Chicago, the danger of bread riots sfmed at cue time to be imminent, on account of the organization of a largo number of the workingmen, principally Germans, Ger-mans, imbued with quasi-communistic ideas. They met on a Sunday in large numbers under the leadership o( a youn? lawyer named Uollman, and passed resolutions .to proceed to the city hall on the following evening even-ing and demand work of the city council. In accordance with this vote, somo 20,000 stalwart working-men working-men paraded the stroets and approached ap-proached tho city hall, but found all the avenues leading thereto blockaded block-aded by policemen, and Mr. HofVman at the head ol a committee waited upon the aldermen and laid before them the demands ol the people, one of which wni that the roliet society, established to aid tho sufferers by the fire of 1871, should distribute their funds among tho, needy. A committee commit-tee was appointed by the council to wait upon tho relief society in connection con-nection with the citizens, committee, and on tbia action being reported to the multitude they quietly dispersed. Subsequently tho relief society distributed distri-buted considerable sums of money and provisions among tho destitute, and the winter was bridged over without any serious disturbances. In other cities soup houses and kitchens fnr the poor were established and there was perhaps less suffering than was anticipated at the beginning of tho year. In ,the meantime the panic and its results had directed the attention of the people to the- financial condition. con-dition. We hnd experienced our seven years of prosperity; were seven seven years ol povorty to follow '! The origin of the trouble was sought for by the press. It was easy enough to attribute it to over production, to contraction of the currency, to the legal tenders, to the national banks, to a high tariff, to gold gambling, to railroad and stock speculations, and to the monopoly established by the transportation companies. All theso elements doubtless entered somewhat into the problem. The organization of the western farmers, a class which hitherto had held a negativo position on social and political topics, into the "Patrons of Husbandry," brought a now and important motive power into in-to the field of industrial action. In tho "nature of a secret organization, composod exclusively of the tillers of the soil, it aimed distinctively at social so-cial and economical reforms in the condition and surroundings of its members. It admitted women into its association and management, thereby securing to it the strength of family attachment and interests. This order was at once boieiged by the politicians of the various parties, who attempted to capture it in their interests, but iudginc from the results of the fall elections, the grangers did not as a body join the fortunes of either party, in fact political considerations consid-erations are entirely excluded from tho order of the Patrons of Husbandry. Husband-ry. In general, however, their influence in-fluence was strongly exercised against railroad monopolies, and in favor of legal restrictions upon their power by combination to fix extortionate freight and passenger rates, and the passage of such laws by tho legislatures of the northwestern eUtcs was largely due to the efforts of the grangers, j These laws are still in nominal operation, opera-tion, awaiting the decision in a Wisconsin Wis-consin case before tho supreme court of the United States, as to their legality. The .financial topic baing tho prominent subject of discussion in the press, largely occupied the attention of congress during hist winter. A test vote ou a bill authorizim: the issue of the greenback revenue of forty-four millions of dollars, showed a majority ol both houses to bo in favor of currency expansion, and a bill to this effect was parsed and vetoed by President Grant. Congress then in the last moments of the ses sion patched up and pa3?d a currency cur-rency act, which was construed both as a measure of inflation and contraction con-traction by the politicians. It authorized author-ized the issue ol a certain additional amount of national bank notes, and it provided for the withdrawal by national banks of their circulation. Thus far the measure has proved one of contraction, a larger amount of national bank currency having been withdrawn under its provisions than has been issued to baakiug associations. associa-tions. Since the adjournment cf the first session of the present j congress business afl.urs havj i remained nearly stationary. Then.' I Law been good croiis save in ' a limited region coniurisiu iu.-l? 1 of ths states of N'ebnuka, Kansas ai:J Missouri, devasUled by the gr.isah.op- ! pers; and the mirkeliug ot the aj;ri- cultural surp! '.is has given an impetus ! to trade in Chicago acd other iedji:: ' centres. The crops in Europe i;j.ve been exceptionally good, however, ' Mid the export trade iu articles ofj 1 produce will fall oil' largely in quantity quan-tity and va'ue from h.t year's tig-urEn. tig-urEn. Tin I'.i--tlic nu-t, ti e land of prolific l-jrv'-u, w.tn enriched a far grr;:it r extent in 167'J by ltd almr.dant wheat pruiuct than by the yield of its mines, and a great ti le of Jomcbtic immigration has set in towards to-wards California, Oregon, and the territories, and btill continues. A large proportion of thewe immigrants are farmers and mechanics, and they come from all parts of the Union and quite largely from other northern nates and New Kigland. . Most of them bring some capital with which to buy farms or embark in business. This large domestic movement, combined com-bined with the great falling oil" in foreign immigration to our shores t,-l!s the atory of tho extent of our broken-down business interests and commercial inactivity bctteperhap-, than any other indication. Indeed, there has been a considerable reflex immigration to Europe during the past year, a movement which is a ro-markahlo ro-markahlo one for this country, to which a great tide of humanity has been setting for the past twenty-five years, 'adding largely to our reproductive reproduc-tive facilities and r.ipid advancement in wealth. As all wealth is dependent upon labor, it is not difficult to estimate esti-mate the loss which in outflow of rather than an income to our population popula-tion would bring a!out. A very important cause of our financial panic and the depression of our business interests is to be found in the condition of the southern states. liefore the war, under a care fully organized system of labor, tho cotton fields and sugar plantations of that section were pouring into the north a constant Btrcani of wealth. Tho aouth furnished the products required re-quired by the world, tho transportation transporta-tion of which gave employment to our magnificent American marine, and the United States was rapidly becoming be-coming the leading power upon the seas. Our miserable sectional war put a stop to all this. The cotton fleldswere closed to our vessels; shipbuilding, ship-building, except for war purposes, was stopped, and the commerce of European nations grew and fattened I upon our folly and self-sacrifice. Xew cotton fields were opened in Egypt and India, and in place of a reproductive industry our people, for a time, gre-r rich nominally, by a taxation which ate into tho business vitals of the country. We destroyRd the south by the ravages of war, and then turned looca upon her people millions of ignorant negroes, to bo led by designing and reckless white politicians poli-ticians into the worst excesses of crime and destruction, under the name of government, ever perpetrated upon any country. This state of things we fastened upon the south by bayonet rule, and the sad results . will bo experienced for years, not only in that section but by our northern communities. It is satisfactory to note, as an indication of an approaching approach-ing change in the aflairs of the south for the better, the result of the late elections, which show that the power of the carpet-baggers is waning, and that many of the negroes even are i weary of these demagogues, whose promises have proved to them entirely delusive, and are ready to cooperate with tho white people to restore a state of peace and harmony in many i communities wnere it is tue destiny I of the two races to live together. ! The result of the fall elections has thoroughly frightened the republican party, and has driven the majority in congress to see the necessity of unanimous unani-mous action upon the currency and other subjects ot importance. The senate last year held a clear republican republi-can majority of currency inflationists. This year republican senators have hastened to enrol themselves under the specie payment standard of the president, and have passed a measure mea-sure somewhat similar to that suggested sug-gested in his late message, embracing a return to specie payment in four years from this time, with free banking bank-ing at once, and the reduction of legal tenders to the sura of $300,000,-000. $300,000,-000. The object of this blind measure mea-sure seems to be simply to avoid instead in-stead of remedying tho difficulties of the financial situation, and to make as clear a record as possible for the next presidential campaign. They have placed the date for the resumption resump-tion of specie at a day so distant that it will not be likely to interfere materially ma-terially with that campaign, and the leaders hopo with ordinary good luck to survive the doad-lock of a democratic demo-cratic house in the next congress, and by a resort to similar tactics as those employed in the Greeley campaign to force the country either into the re-election of Grant or the candidate who may be satisfactory to the financial finan-cial speculators and bankers. tie must be a bold prophet who would now dare to predict the failure of this conspiracy to maintain the country in the grasp of the money power, especially in the present situation sit-uation of the opposition party. While the democracy claim from the results of the late election to be the dominant domi-nant and coming party, they seem to lack the unity of a distinct purpose, and a common platform of principles. princi-ples. They are all at sea on the prominent questions of interest. Some of them are still disturbed by the visions of the pstf and think that the political milleuium can only De advanced by going back to the theories of Jefferson; some regard hard money and free trade as the main democratic landmarks, while others as strenuously oppose a speedy t return to specie navmeuts, demand the abolition of the national bank notes, and the iuue of legal tender currency diject from the treasury to meet the wants of business. It "will require a united and harmonious opposition, op-position, on a popular, v.t.il platform to cnab.e me Utmwracy to carrv the next presidency. F-iuus the Act-on or me present con ere may tfaj l0 such a result. It is evfdent that tinam-ial questions will control ti;e election ot IS, j, and the voice of the people of the great and south mut oe h.ard and hetded in order to render the success of tne opposition wjthin the ranee of probability. |