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THE GOLD MOVEMENT SINCE 1860.

To a country, with a depreciated paper currency, and desirous of an early return to a specie basis, it is a matter of no small consequence to ascertain what is its supply of the precious metals. A priori, it might be considered highly probable that during the last six years we should have parted with a considerable portion of our accumulation of gold. Our production of commodities was materially curtailed by the war; and the consequent advance in prices (beyond what was due to currency derangements) naturally opened our market to the products of foreign countries. We were deprived of the principal staple by which we have been wont to pay for our imports, and had not the usual supply of breadstuffs for exportation. With such a radical derangement in our foreign commerce, it would seem very natural to conclude that we should have to draw largely upon our accumulation of specie for liquidating the excess of imports over exports. A very general impression exists among our people that such has been the actual course of affairs, that we have thus lost a large amount of specie since 1860, and that conse quently we have not at present an adequate basis for the resumption of specie payments, and cannot have until, by some legislative expedient, the efflux of specie from the country is checked.

The principal movements of the precious metals in the country are indicated in recorded returns, with sufficient precision to enable us to form a reliable estimate of the correctness of this opinion. The imports and exports of coin and bullion are officially recorded. The product in California, Arizona, Idaho and Oregon is represented by the registered receipts at San Francisco by Weils, Fargo & Co.; but to the recorded arrivals by that medium it is customary to add 10 per cent. to the receipts from the interior and 30 per cent. to the coastwise receipts for amounts brought personally by miners; and in giving below the product received at San Francisco we make that addition. Of the product in the new mining regions of Colorado and Montana there is no actual record. The yield in those districts is sent direct to the Atlantic; and during the last two years a considerable portion of the yield of Idaho also has taken this route. It is difficult to estimate the amount of treasure coming overland from these regions. During the last three years the product of Colorado and Montana has been quite important. amount of gold from those territories, deposited at the mint and its branches, last year was $6,523,000; and yet it is known that of the whole product less than one half finds its way to the mint. It is estimated by those most familiar with the treasure movement of these regions that the annual product is about $15,000,000. Deeming this estimate somewhat sangume, it may yet be very sately estimated that the receipts from Colorado, Montana and other mining districts at other points than San Francisco, since 1860, aggregate fully $50,000,000, and this we adopt as an estimate safe beyond all dispute.

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With these explanations we subjoin a statement of the domestic production, the imports and the exports for each of the last seven years;

the home yield being for the calendar year, ending December 31st, and the imports and ex-ports for the fiscal year ending June 30th:

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our supply of gold We must acknowlconceive of noway in There are considera

It thus appears that, within the last seven years, has exceeded our importations by $184,000,000. edge considerable surprise at this result, but can which its substantial accuracy can be impugned. tions which justify the expectation that the precious metals would have accumulated during the period under review. Our gross exportation of coin and bullion, during the last seven years, has been almost exactly the same as for the preceding seven years; the shipments being for the respective periods $393,700,000 and $395,500,000; but we have received from foreign countries, during the seven years since 1860, $125,000,000, while during the preceding seven years we imported only $62,500,000. It thus appears that, since 1860, our net exports have been $64,300,000 below the amount for the like number of years next

previous. Concurrently with this decline in the ratio of our net exports, we have had an increase in the domestic production. As the record of receipts at San Francisco was not kept with much precision previous to 1860, we cannot compare the movement since that year with that of the preceding seven years with strict accuracy. From a comparison of estimates, we take it to be quite safe to conclude that the receipts at that point for the last seven years average fully $5,000,000 per annum in excess of those for the seven years ending with 1860. The overland receipts at the Atlantic ports from the new gold fields, which we have estimated at $50,000.000 for the seven years, also form an important item in accounting for the large increase of supply. Putting together these several items-the decrease in net exports, the enlarged receipts at San Francisco, and the product of the new mines arriving at other points-we are enabled, from these considerations alone, to account for $150,000,000 of the $184,000,000 gain above exhibited.

The taxation upon the assays of bullion afford an important criterion of the current production of the precious metals in the country. It is to be assumed that in this, as in other departments of taxation, a portion of the duty (upon private assays) fails of being reported to the revenue officers; so that the official returns cannot be taken as representing fully the production. It appears, however, from the last Report on the Finances, p. 266, that, for the fiscal year 1866, $488,337 of tax was collected upon assays of $81,389,541 of bullion. Allowing for a certain amount assayed without paying the tax, it is scarcely supposable that the product of that year was less than $85,000,000, which is $9,000,000 in excess of the net exports of the year (a year of much the largest specie shipments in the history of the country), and $47,000,000 in excess of the average net exports for the last seven years. This fact shows that we are producing the precious metals at a rate vastly in excess of our exportation, and taken together, with other considerations previously adduced, confirms the credibility of the result to which the above statistics have led us.

These facts show that so far from the supply of gold_having been lessened during the war, it has been largely increased. It cannot, therefore, be urged against the resumption of specie payments that we have not an adequate metallic basis. Precisely where, or in what condition, this large amount of the precious metals is held it is not pertinent to our present purpose to enquire. The proof is incontestable that it is in the country; and it is reasonable to suppose that upon gold being again brought into regular use, a considerable portion of this increased stock would find its way into circulation, so as to supply the monetary wants of the country.

OUR RAILROAD SYSTEM.*

BY THE HON. JOSIAH QUINCY, OF BOSTON.

The most superficial observer cannot fail to be struck with the extent of our railroads, with the excellence of much of their engineering, and with the vast motive power they are able to employ. Tunnels have been bored through mountains, viaducts carried over valleys, and the treacherous swamp has become firm set earth beneath the iron highway. With a double track any line of railway offers an almost unlimited capacity for the transportation of passengers and freight. No amount of traffic could well be offered, no concourse of passengers could well assemble, that a properly managed railroad could not accommodate. Why, then, are the trains comparatively empty and infrequent? The trader wishes to give his personal attention to the selection of his goods. The mechanic and laborer wish to go where labor is abundant and to return as soon as it is dull. The New Englander would like to go West and see what it is that feeds him, and send home from full granaries the supply for his family or town. The citizen of the West would like to go to New England and see who it is that clothes him, and, leaving his orders, receive many bales of clothing adapted to his market. The citizen of South Carolina would like to come to the North and learn how little animosity of feeling has survived the war. The enterprising young man in New York, fighting his way up from poverty, wanted to visit the South, to cultivate friendly relations and cultivate the chances of profitable trade. Intimate intercourse and easy mingling of the different sections of the nation is the true means for a permanent and sound reconstruction of the Union. The price of bread on the sea-board, the value of land in the West, the payment of our indebtedness to foreign nations in our own products, all call upon our railroads for reduced freights and reduced passage. To effect this, great arteries of trade and traffic must be controlled by the people for the people.

A paralyzing monopoly is exemplified in our present railway system' and it is a monopoly that no increase in the number of railways can affect. Patentees and authors hase a mild form of monopoly for a limited time. For a few years they are enabled to charge a high price for their inventions or books. Observe how these monopolies differ from a railway monopoly. Their time is limited and their sphere of operation contracted. In a few years the most important invention can be used by the public without any restriction, and until that time comes, if the price is too high, no one is compelled to use it. But how different is the case with railroads? The public must use them and pay the monopolists' price, not for a limited time, but for ever, if our present system is permitted to be permanent. For the State has authorized the directors of a railroad to conduct its business as may best conduce to their own ease and the interest of the shareholders. And so these directors may say to the public, "You have no complaint to make. You may travel about the country

* Read before the American Social Science Association, November 22, 1867.

in any other way you please. If you choose to try it, you had better take food for yourself and forage for your animal, and conveniences for camping out, for our railroads have destroyed all wayside inns and annihilated all rival lines of stages. Or, if you have a few superfluous millions, and can get a new charter through the Legislature, you may put down a new track by our side, when we will either buy you out or agree upon a common tariff and let the people pay tribute to two railroads instead of one!" Seeing then how completely we are in the power of railway managers, it is interesting to learn the actual cost of the transportation we are compelled to accept. At what cost per mile can a ton of freight be carried on a railway?

There is a prevalent opinion that the charges must be proportioned to the cost of construction-that when the cost is heavy the charges must be proportionably great. Now the English railways on which the greatest amount of capital per mile has been expended are precisely those on which the fares are lowest. The Charing Cross Railway, for instance, cost a million and a half sterling, or seven million five hundred thousand dollars in gold per mile; and yet passengers are carried at a lower rate than on some railways that were constructed at a hundredth part of that cost. The error arises from confounding the cost of the machinery by which the passengers are conveyed with the cost of the conveyance itself-when the fares exceed the actual expense incurred in conveyance, it becomes a mere question of numbers as to what fares best pay.

A pound of coke under a locomotive boiler will evaporate five pints of water; in this evaporation a mechanical force is developed sufficient to draw two tons' weight on a railway a distance of one mile in two minutes! The same weight in a stage-coach on a common road would require four horses, and occupy six minutes. Dr. Lardner says: "To transport a train with 240 passengers from London to Birmingham and back, 200 miles each way, in three hours and a half, is effected by a mechanical force produced by the combustion of five tons of coke, the value of about £5. To carry the same number by stage-coaches would require twenty coaches and 380 horses, and would be performed in twelve hours. The anomaly is, that while the cost is reduced to less than one-twentieth, the fares have, on an average, not been reduced one-half."

In pursuing this inquiry, I regret to be compelled to rely so much on English authorities. But the managers of our American railroads seem to object to our getting at statistics. The president of a principal one confessed before a legislative committee that they only divided their expenses in their report to the Legislature, which was made up arbitrarily, as best they could. But in England their returns are more exact.

The following estimates of the English Board of Trade are made upon the principle that the ordinary current expenses of the establishment are paid, the railway kept in state of efficient repair by the substitution of new rails and sleepers for old ones, and all other work of a similar kind which may be necessary, such as keeping the rolling stock, engines, wagons, carriages, and tracks in order, replacing them by new ones when necessary. All this outlay is comprised in working expenses.

The average expenditure per train per mile, taking all the railways in the United Kingdom, has, according to the reports of the Board of Trade

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