The Business Activity Of The West

The great prairie States show every indication of being in the enjoyment of a business prosperity fully lip to the average, if not positively greater than usual. Money is active at low rates at Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis, commercial paper being obtainable at 7 and 10 per cent. Trade collections are easy, and loans aTe paid promptly, The loan agents at Chicago report that there has rarely been gre ater aiacrity to meet interest, while the payments on principal are large, and scarcely any extensions of time are being asked for. AU branches of trade, except iron and a few specially depressed industries, are active, and nobody would know that there had been a panic. Making all allowance for Chica -o rose-co!or, it must be admitted that the Ve3t is wonderfully prosperous, and more active in business than the East. This is duelargely to the fact that agriculture is lesa susceptible to businoss depression than manufactures and comnierce. But there are other difieren oes in the eircumst&r ces of tho two soctions, not so closeiy and necessarily identifled with their diiïering fields of industry. Two considerations occur to us at this moment of this ckaracter. In the flrst place, the prices of labor and of the nccessariea of life have not risen so miich at the We3t as at the Eist, and we believe that what rise theie has been is more readily knocked off. The agricultural and ambitious commnnities are more ready to accept lower terrns as the price of business than the urbane and moro conservativa communities of tlu East. To take a single illustration, the flrst-class New York and Boston hotela maintain the same prices that they reached at the worst time in the war, when gold was highest, while in Chicago flrst-class hotels of equal magniöcence chargo only 3.50 per day. Weslern gentlemen, going to their favorito city, take their wives with theni and linger to see tho sights, but when thcy oome East, they come unencumbered, and stay as brief a time as possible. Again, if we may judge by tha reported rates of commercial papor at the West, the banks of that section havo aided the revival. They have responded warmly to the wants of the business community, and a3 money has grown abundant, have lowered their rates accordiuglv. At the East, on the contrary, while money is quoted easy on cali at New York, the banks have been closefisted in their treatment of borrowers on time. -