railway may be a foolish and unremunerative enterprise; but this has to do with the individuals concerned; the community, in the supposititious cases we have made, might, let us suppose, have been better off had the expenditures of those individuals taken some other form, if the material and the labor had gone into something productive (let us believe there are other good things in the world than economic production); but no injury, no loss, no diminution of wealth has occurred—and this is the main thing. A passage quoted from Prof. Price in the earlier part of our article affirms this.
We hear a great deal about the railroad "craze" of a few years ago, and of the immense sums sunk in those foolish and extravagant ventures. But the sums of money commonly mentioned are misleading. As we have fully explained, the money simply changed hands; what was really lost by those enterprises was the goods and bullion exported to pay for the iron purchased abroad, and the food and clothing consumed by the laborers, over and above what their consumption would otherwise have been; in addition to which is the loss of the misdirected energy. This was all very large, no doubt; but far from being what the figures commonly quoted represent it to be. There is, moreover, no evidence that this loss was anything more than a part of our surplus; the assumption that it impaired our capital, and depleted our productive resources, is wholly groundless. No one can say, we imagine, that capital was withdrawn from any other pursuit; that productive industry in any direction was weakened by a secession of its resources by this "craze." The nation was much in the position of a merchant who has many ventures abroad, some of which have proved disastrous. His profits are reduced, but his ability to keep his numerous ships afloat is not impaired. Even had the railroad investments partially reduced our capital, it is really monstrous to assume that we could not have recovered from the blow in much less than four years of time. Whatever the cause of the business prostration may be, it evidently is something that lies deep, something far more serious than the loss of a part of our wealth. A merchant who loses all his profits is still enabled to go on; a merchant who loses even half of his capital is still enabled to go on: how is it, then, that the community is so nearly at a standstill because a portion of its surplus was lost? Distinctly the railway over-speculation, hurtful as it was, cannot account for the paralysis in industry which now, four years afterward, so generally exists.
Not a few people are convinced that paper-money is the cause of the difficulty. "Only return to specie payments," they say, "and all will be right." All the inflation and unhealthful stimulation caused by the greenbacks has ceased to be. It was predicted that a reaction must come upon the return to specie payments. It has come long before. It has come without contraction of the currency, the volume of which has ceased to exercise that hurtful influence that was supposed to
