Oxford Democrat

Bank Suspensions---Failures---Hard Times.

The business men of the country are now passing through trying, perilous times. The telegraphic wires are daily bringing us reports of heavy failures, bank suspensions, panic and alarm in the business world. In Philadelphia, Baltimore, Providence and other places, the banks have suspended payment, being unable to meet their liabilities and redeem their bills, under the pressure brought to bear upon them. Merchants who do their business through banking houses, are necessarily embarrassed the moment there is trouble with the banks; hence, in consequence of this and various other causes, many of the large houses in nearly all of our principal cities have been compelled to assign their effects or otherwise go down under the crash.

These heavy failures create others at once, more or less of capital and smaller means. But that is not the worst feature of the case now existing, always ready to kindle a kind of wildfire of alarm and excitement, which for the time being paralyzes the country like a snare, withering and estranging in every direction. These panics in the business world immediately destroy all confidence which man has in his fellow, as to who to trust or who to believe in as of a million to do or even be safe for test now. I mean by living at a palace to day, and to morrow his palace may be in charge of the sheriff, and to a bankrupt man's ears, with eager to do so and pay the liabilities in course of time, frequently in the financial crash use. Into he their means of the at no and under a fearful necessity reaching for the time being their pressing liabilities. Sad is the initial tendency of things in this business world.

But there is a pleasure in contemplating these painful facts. We daily require so to look through the sequence to the cause, for the true remedy ought to be applied to cure the evil and prevent repetition.

In our judgment we have labored to show that the wild and various speculations, debauching the trade and the result from a capital notion of ease. An nt. wo et wh d trepw "O 0 (o aas Ma hate hevn tiving botod thrir grata. In the cites ar srt Cantaatd kasitrs sen have deiifad in mifaes, aad cathy alis ers, sylradilly farsdend, cand deeutated prinaly sthy Iy ba drnfast hora, rdi ar t l fand epte oualy enty day Ihtea aatad a being traied t ca brast cajdoymrnt or prd w n. lare bem sated is th lap of lusury-lrara to jadigs and spodthrifte aed an tho eed jeed 'rkes and vaglel- dg to tnaris their parnts ad site. ir dadtirs haw len tavgil D thos ths pao nad yells etrel litezatan. qo dto garn in farbehs ad Osars, ead rth up et mau Nl fr tr att.T Aame donte talieed, atd cut a i ath in the wrid, lae cigded troat suallr cilics, cosatry village and towns. Men have launclad uut far baryod thrir somazs. run theit crulit i g stest joste ct- tent, and wlan gapdp starad tan io the facv bare lad mothing to jay with. Whan the ghat mae of the casuuniy. ot to living lagand tlheie mans, this fast aloe will to a grater or lose eastent, cause a rey- olutiua as the tunsre vrid. I: cas a nearseaty cosajone, aui tarn vught to es pectit eavucr ot later Sperulet in and an iirlinate dolre to get rich, as atother cauee of tiame land time. Ie have to aasy ach uo want to got thrir liting withenat watk, who want ts sorumulite w alth with t rie it in any legitimale way, bebce they hate run int- all kinle of wild epeeulatinne ins lands, io starka, anl in rrry t l. that cunld be ved tor the parpoe Mch have rusdnd eut weat and saae boeght lands, cthar dug, si sitre, an a grat many alm nt ast qlantity estiser. The country haw for Couled wit yeula tors. WY. had eterahatats is fout, in aorn. in w'bat, is ucar, in aolaers, in calthe andwitaot crything cle Nine of th hungry blalnuckars upuo the body polite. have wade m sbry, e ge ms de and thrn last. others hare lost and wade mothing. a frw haregrown rash cut of thairill-gottin gsins. and others have han ruated. Many of theme gentirmen raerals, wls lare tiwn epunging the cummunity anlloqing vi high prios, and abliging th honost cise mers tu pay double far what thry were obliged to bay, aro aow reaparg the whart- wind."anl allthe pouple wy amen to it These aitemapts to cuntrol the tarket and com pel the bomest, latoring clasngs topay tribut to a elass of piratical epeculature. has had the ut to place a fietitlous value upon almost every article wo cat, drink. wear or tu, henee when the thing esplodrs. it will for a tite crmate a panle in the com- munity. Another cnuse is found in the dispropor- tion betwen ur exporte and imports. .s a nation w wndalroad lewe than we bring back. This bringe the balance of trade against us Woimport much that we ought to produce. Thepublie lureign debt
created by this means has all to be paid in specie. Last year we sent out $57,000,000 of specie more than we imported. Had it not been for the gold we have brought from California, this crash would have fallen upon us years ago. This has not operated to prevent but to delay the trouble. But these things, bad as it is, is only secondary; it is a "wheel within a wheel." The great overshadowing cause, one that lies under- neath all other causes has been the practi- cal operation of the Tariff of 1846. This has been the great procuring cause of the mischief. Previous to the passage of that act, the country was enjoying a healthy state of prosperity. Labor was receiving an ample reward and our capitalists doing a good, safe, reliable business. The industrial pursuits of the country were protected from the ravages of the southern capitalist, while the labor of the free men of the north was safely placed upon a basis not to compete with foreign labor. The tariff of '46 by taking off the duties from the manufactured articles and raising them upon the raw material from which articles were wrought, brought ruin and destruction upon the manufacturing in- terests of the country. Our woollen mills have broken down, all over the country. Men who have embarked their capital in these enterprises have lost it all while the laborere therein have been turned out of employment. Articles of use, must to a certain extent be had. If our own country men are compelled as they have been by the unjust legislation of the country, to abandon their manufactures, we are compelled to encourage foreign capital and foreign labor by importing from abroad. Thus it has been, while our own capitalists have been ruined by these investments and our own laborers thrown out of employment, and the whole country growing poor in consequence of it, foreign capitalists have been amassing wealth, and the laborers of Europe doing for us the very work which ought to have been done of home among ourselves.

Much of the importation for the last ten years, has from instigated by the unjust discrimination against us in these very facts of which we are now speaking. We have been growing poorer, while the millions of Great Britain have been rolling up their hundreds of thousands without stint.

Excessive importations have produced a large sum as revenue, much that notwithstanding the enormous expenditures of the general government, we have fully $70,000,000 of gold now locked up in the vaults of the nation. This large sum has been wrung from the pockets of the people, is not needed at all by the government and now lays dead in our treasury vaults, while our business community are being ruined for the want of it. Could this large sum be placed in the channels of trade it would entirely relieve our people from their immediate embarrassments. Our banks could go along without the last trouble: it would create a healthy business, adequate to meet all their wants and liabilities.

These in our opinion are some of the causes which have brought upon us our present pecuniary troubles. There are others intimately connected with this matter of which we would gladly say something but we cannot lengthen out this article by any reference to them until another week. We hope to be able to refer to some measures of relief that have been suggested by the business men of the country. We hope to be able to refer to some of the things hereinafter. In the mean time let us keep cool and courageous, remembering that such times is safe to follow the storm, while they look with confidence to a better time coming.