ENGLAND’S SORE TRIAL.

Kumara Times, Issue 1002, 16 December 1879, Page 4

ENGLAND’S SORE TRIAL.

[FROM JUDGE KELLY’S LONDON LETTER TO THE PHILADELPHIA TIMES.] If it be true that misery loves company, farmers and landholders may find some grains of comfort in the fact that all classes are suffering with them. Even great capitalists, while making frequent losses, cannot find safe employment for their funds at 1 per cent per annum. A correspondent of the Times, in its issue .of the 30th ult., tells the story of some .■seventy.cotton mills io Oldham ‘‘constructed on the latest principles, with the best arranged machinery and managed with the strictest regard to economy> which are declaring no dividends and which are quoted in the share list at a decline, in many instances, of from 50 to 80 per cent on the amount of paid up capital.” He tells, too, a like story of the coal and iron mining companies, in which Lancashire, from which he dates, has invested heavily. Of building societies and owners of improved property he tells even a sadder story, and closes his gloomy picture by saying;

“ Machine shops and paper works also come under the category of unprofitable undertakings, and those which have been thrown on the market during the past month have only realised from 6 to 9 per cent of their cost, and these works were built within the last twenty years at a cost of from L 120,000 t0L150,000 each. All the foregoing 1 point to a most calamitous state of affairs, and are only a few of the most salient indications of the general depression which exist amongst us; nevertheless, they are quite sufficient to show that some radical change is necessary to draw us out of the deep slough of despond into which we have fallen. India, which consumes about one third of our cotton productions, is getting-poorer and poorer every year. The United States, which used to take a considerable amount of calico, is now independent of us, and, actually competing with us in many of our markets—aye, and even in our own Manchester market; the continent of Europe is leaving na gradually but surely, as it is yearly supplying more and more of its reauireraents

pijriug ujwio auu iuuic ui its ic^uuciuouio from its own spindles and looms.” The truth is the depression is complete and almost hopeless. 1 have before me a paper by Richard Seyd, F.S.S., entitled “Statistics of Failures in the United Kingdom during the years 1877, 1878, and the first half of 1879.” The list embraces financial institutions, manufacturers, wholesale and retail dealers, professional men, builders, publicans, etc., and presents the following totals ; In 1877 the failures numbered 11,022 ;in 1878, 15,059 ;and In the first six months of this year, 8,990. What shall be inferred by this combination of disastrous conditions and the infinite number of facts with which they might be supplemented and confirmed.” May they justify us in speaking of “effected monarchy and aristocracy” and prophesying the bankruptcy of England ? I think not. My impression is that the throne of England was never more firmly seated in the affection of the people, and that apart from other favoring considerations, the influences which are sometimes supposed to control legislatures in the election of United States Senators have done much to confirm the faith of the people in an hereditary peerage. Nor is the bankruptcy of the British Island impending. England is the world’s creditor. Every nation is in debt to her, and there is no field for the investment of her accumulated capital, as is shown by the fact that, though money may be borrowed in London at less than one per cent, per annum, the bank now holds more gold than it ever held before. Her losses will be incalculable but not ruinous, as are those which debtor nations are suffering from the same world-wide cause. As a creditor, she loses by the failure of individuals, corporations and states, the world over. But while ruin overtakes them, what happens to her is but a reduction of surplus capital so relatively slight as to leave her the means with which to buy in at her own price the assets of her debtors, and to hold them until the repeal of unwholesome law shall restore the value they possessed before the volume of the world’s metallic money was arbitrarily reduced. Bonaparte said that, “ though the empire were adamant, political economists would reduce it to powder,” and though British subjects in all climes are suffering from the baneful influence of doctrinaires the common sense that controls the government in all great crises will preserve the empire, and London will long continue to be the monetary centre and the creditor of the world.