Echoes From The Panic

The ground-swell froui the latefinanoial panic beginsto prove, as we feared that it might prove, more destructive than the storm itseli'. For, although the immediate effect of the panic was to cause a sudien shrinkage in the value of niany kinds of securities and the.eonsequent loss of several hundred millions of dollars to Wall street, the feeling of mistrust which has succeeded is likely to cause a niuch greater loss to the industrial interests of the country. The lirst industries to suffer were those connucted with the building and the equipment of lailroads. Almost pefore the ciisis had passed sands ot workmen were discharged f'rora the car works nd the locomotivo works. of Virginia, New Jersey, and other States. The einbarrassment next reached tho grain producers of the West, whose crops were arrested in their forward movement to the seaboard by tho deadlock in the negotiation of foreign exchauges. And now that these first violent effects of the crisis have done their worst, orhave partly passed away, we have almost daily reports of new localities or new industries being reached by the reflux of the tide. The tobáceo faetones of Virgiian have been obliged to suspend operations, not by the falhng off of the demand for their produets, as in the caae of the car and locomotive works, but by lack of currency wherewith to carry on those operations. A few days ago the Groton Mills of Woonsocket, iu Ithode Island, reduced their hours of work to half timo. The shoe factories of Dover, in New Hampshire, have been compelled to make a pavtial suspension by the inability to get discounted the notes of custoniers. The Hopkins ifc Allen Manufacturing Company, of Norwioh, has discharged a number of operatives and reduced the working time to nine hours a day. The Taitville Works are run but three days a week. The blacksmiths on Hurricane Islaud, Me., have suspended work on account of trade difficulties with their employers. The Fishback Puddle and Eail Mills at Pottsville, Pa., a day or two ago suspended work, throwing six hundred hands out of employment. But even more significant than these isolated cases was the meeting of the Fall lliver manufacturéis on last Monday evening, looking to a general reduction of work not only by the establishments of Fall Eiver but by those of other communities as well. The total or partial suspensions here enumerated are, with one or two exceptions, taken froin the papers of a single aftornoon; and when the suspensions reportad for the entire time since the beginning of the panic are summed up, the exteut of the stagnation which has fallen upon many if not upon all branches of industry in the country will be found to be much greater than is generally supposed. And while the Wall street panic deprived inany people of the superfluities and even of the comforts of lite, the effects of the panic upon industry have deprived inany thousands of laborers of the wages whereon thoy relied to purohase daily uecessities. Much of the mistrust which causes the hoarding of money, and which thereby prolongs the financial stringency, is unnecessary, but it is uot unnaturai. And while the restoration of a reasonable confidence in the financial stability of the country would bring relief for many of the evils which have overtaken a large nuniber of industrial operatives, and would ward off evils which are threatened j to others, it ia perhapa useless to hope that universal confidenoe will be speedily , restored. The reckless jobbery aud corruption of Radical legislation in local and in national affairs have destroyed the oonfidence of the people both in the honesty and tbe capacity of the men who represent the predominant paity to find a way out of existingdifficulties. Notwithstanding the extravagant and corrupt appropriations made at the last session of Congress fears are repeatedly annonnced froru Washington that the Republican Congress which meets in December will so far surpass its predeoessor in this directiou that the Treasury will be unable to meet its demanda withont an increase of taxation. The tariff, too, which by enhancing by at least half the cost of railroad building is largely responsible for the panic, remains unchanged with very i little hope of being changed by a Kepublican Congress. And apart from the direct influence of the tariff in producing the panic through its effbcts upon railroad securities, the general inflation of values and the fictitious prices which in conjunction with an irredeemable paper currency it maintained and still niaintains were equally efficiënt causes in bringing about the fiuancial disaster. When the Republican party, with its corruption and its class legislation is removed froin power, we shall have healthy finances - we cannot hape to have them so long as that party controls the affairs of the nation.- N. Y. World. Of the five or six hundred depositors in the bankinghouse of Jay Cooke & Co , all but about thirty have signed a plan agreeing to place the settlement in the hands of ex-Comniissioner of Internal Revenue Rolling. These thirty are either distant from the city or cannot at present be reached.