K, was, and is still (for these are actual transactions taken from his account books), an exchange broker, doing business in New York. He buys notes on the banks of England, Ireland, Scotland, France and Canada—indeed, foreign banknotes of all kinds—for which he usually pays about ninety per cent. of their face value. By the end of last year he had invested $200,000 in these notes brought here by travellers. He then inclosed them in letters, and sent them to their proper destinations to be redeemed. Redeemed they were in due time, and the proceeds remitted in gold. In this business he earned the neat profit of $22,222, and the country was that much richer thereby. But Mr. Greeley, who only looked at the import of K's gold remittance, declared the country $22,222 worse off than before, and dares us to "come on" with the figures.
L, and some fifty thousand other skedaddlers ran off to Canada when the war broke out, for fear they might be drafted. Together with the colored folks who fled there, and the many travellers who went there from time to time, they carried with them most of our silver half-dollars, quarters, dimes, half-dimes, and three-cent pieces. These amounted to $25,000,000, which the skedaddlers, the colored folks, and the travellers, as with returning peace they slowly straggled back into the country, invested in Canadian knick-knacks, which they disposed of in the United States. The incoming goods were duly entered at our frontier custom-houses, but the outgoing silver was not. Mr. Greeley, unaware of this fact, detects an over-importation of $25,000,000, and is waiting to be elected to Congress in order to legislate the matter right.
M, (an actual transaction) had $1,000,000 in Illinois Central Railroad bonds, for which he desired to obtain $1,000,000 worth of iron rails to repair the road with. Not being able to effect the transaction in the United States, he sent the bonds to Germany, where they were sold, and the proceeds invested in English railroad iron, worth $1,000,000 in Glasgow, but $1,100,000 in Chicago, ex duty, and plus transportation. By this transaction M, besides effecting the desired exchange, netted a profit of $100,000. Yet, according to the Commerce and Navigation Reports, and Mr. Greeley's one eye, as there had been no exports and $1,000,000 of imports, the country was a sufferer by the latter sum.
N, was a body of incorporators who owned a tract of land lying in the bend of a river. Standing in need of water power for manufacturing purposes, they resolved to cut a canal across the bend. As this would essentially benefit the navigation of the river, the State agreed to guaranty their bonds for a loan of money to the extent of $1,000,000. Finding no purchaser for these bonds in the United States, they remitted them to Europe, and there sold them at par. With the proceeds they purchased army blankets for the Boston market, on which they realized ten per cent. net profit. These sold, the avails were invested in barrows, spades, water-wheels, wages, &c., and in good time the canal was cut and the manufactory set a-going. Profitable as this thing was to N, Mr. Greeley's single-barrelled telescope sees in it only a loss to the country of $1,000,000.
O, represents the Illinois Central, Union Pacific, and other western railroads, owning grants of land along their respective roads, to sell which to actual settlers they open agencies in London, Havre, Antwerp, and other European cities. The emigrants who buy these lands pay for them in Europe, and set sail for America with their title-deeds in their pockets, and their axes on their shoulders, ready for a conquest over forest and prairie. The agents of the Illinois Central Railroad (see report of the Company), who have sold 1,664,422 acres, say at an average of ten dollars per acre, invested the proceeds, $16,644,220, in iron rails for the road, worth that sum in England, but ten per cent. more in Illinois, less duty and plus transportation. The road has thus not only netted a profit of $1,664,422 on the transaction, but sold their wild lands to actual settlers, who will soon convert them into productive farms. But Mr. Greeley, upon seeing an import of $16,644,220 of iron rails, declares the thing must be stopped or the country will perish.
P, is Sir Morton Peto and other European capitalists, who, believing that eight per cent., the average rate of interest in the United States, is better than three per cent., the average rate in England, invest $10,000,000 of capital in American enterprises. This capital is sent hither in the form of merchandise, to stock our railroads, farms, factories, etc., and is so much clear benefit to the country; but to Mr. Greeley's solitary vision it is only a curse.
Q, and his friends are cozy old-fashioned merchants in Boston city, who own one hundred and seventy-nine vessels (see Consular Reports, 1865), which trade between foreign ports and away from the United States altogether. These vessels have an aggregate burden of one million tons, are worth forty dollars, gold, per ton, and earn a net profit per annum of ten per cent. on their cost. Although in this kind of carrying trade we are wofully behind other nations, yet it yields, in twelve years (the average age of the vessels engaged in it), the neat little profit of $48,000,000, which is invested by Q in tea, coffee, and sugar, and imported into the United States at a net profit of ten per cent. Although an unquestionable gain to Q and the country at large of $52,800,000, Mr. Greeley, with his contracted views, only regards it as a dead loss on the import side of our Commerce and Navigation Returns.
R, was a bank which had a defaulting cashier, who ran away in 1857 with $500,000 of its funds. (Sch*yl*r carried off a million of New Haven Railroad bonds). These funds were recovered and converted into gold, which was shipped to the United States. According to Mr. Greeley, who could find no record of exports to counterbalance it, the same was a dead loss to the country.
S, and his friends own 76,990 tons of whaling ships (see Commerce and Navigation Reports, 1866), worth $40 per ton, gold, or $3,079,600. These ships are sent annually to the Arctic regions and earn for S and his friends ten per cent., or $307,960 net profit each year. Five years' profits, consisting of whale oil, bone, etc., which, after an active and profitable trade at the Sandwich Islands, they returned with this year, were valued at $1,655,659, and were duly entered among the imports, furnishing to Mr. Greeley an indubitable proof that the country was losing money in this business, and that the attention of Congress should at once be directed toward supplying a proper remedy.