| OCR Text |
Show THE FINANCES.<br><br> The continued excess of imports over those of last year, and the recent decrease in value of exports, has contributed to advance foreign exchange, and some exports of specie are now considered probable by many. It does not follow that such exports, if any should occur, would be large enough to have any appreciable effect upon our monetary condition, nor that exports of specie sufficiently large to check the rapid advance of prices and to retard speculation would be disastrous. Thus the advance in prices of iron and products thereof has been so great that shipments from Great Britain to the United States amounted to $7,350 tons in January - at the rate of more than 1,000,000 tons yearly. But already a tendency to decline in prices is noted, and it is probable that the excessive importation will thus be speedily arrested. So the rapid advance in prices of wheat and bread-stuffs, having gone so far as to check exports, was arrested by the partial withdrawal of the foreign demand. Both by checking imports and by increasing exports of merchandise, a decline in prices would thus tend to prevent exports of specie; and we may be quite sure that this remedy will be applied before enough specie has gone abroad to cause any serious monetary stringency. Thus far the exports of gold have been even smaller than they were last year to date, amounting to $128,152 since January 1st, against $134,223 in 1879, and the exports of silver have been only $1,212,360 since January 1st, against $2,928,319 to the same date last year. Moreover, there is much more reason now than there was a year ago to believe that bonds and stocks of American corporations will be sold abroad to a large amount, and the present effect of such sales is to prevent exports of gold, precisely as if wheat or other merchandise had been exported instead of bonds.-N. Y. Tribune. |
