Article Text
# THE MONEY PRESSURE. Under the foregoing head the Raymond (Hinds county, Miss.,) Gazette a highly respectable and ably edited paper-of the 7th inst., remarks as follows: The pressure in money matters continues throughout all the Northern, Middle and Western States. Mahy heavy failures are reported, among all classes of business men; while the Banks, in several of the States, have suspended almost in a body. The extreme South sad South-West remain, up to this time, but little affected-though something of a pressure has existed at New Orleans for two or three weeks past. The suspension of the Tennessee Banks bears heavily on North Mississippi, almost the entire currency of that region being Tennessee, And to increase the panic in that region, the issues of the Northern Bank of Mississippi, at Holly Springs, are thrown out every where, owing to the fact that they are no longer redeemed by McDowell, Mills & Co., of New Orleans. Hereabouts no pressure or alarm prevails-nor can we be affected or injured unless worse things occur at New Orleans than there is any just reason to apprehend. Our money consists almost exclusively of the issues of the New Orleans Banks; should thiey fail, or suspend, Hinds county would suffer most terribly -but no fears exist anywhere, that we have heard, as to their soundness and entire ability to stand up under any pressure which may come. That a pressure has existed here for some weeks our columus have furnished ample evidence; and we assure our friend of the Gazette that we have endeavored to present the public, every day, with a faithful and accurate description of it. We believe we have succeeded. In no material particular have the averments, or the observations respecting the probabilities of the future, made in our financial columns, been disputed or disproved. We state this in no boastful spirit, but as a fact which may be of value to the public in the future. We incline to the opinion that the worst is over, but whether right or wrong in this belief, one thing is certain: New Orleans and her merchants will weather the gale, no matter how fierce it blows, and, like a staunch ship, with not a decayed timber from keel to topmast, will make the port of honorable solvency without disaster of any moment! Our Mississippi cotemporary speaks truthfully regarding our banking institutions. Too much confidence cannot be reposed in them. To over estimate their impregnability is impossible. They are financial Gibralters, and cannot be shaken by any monetary storm that may blow from the four quarters of the compass at one and the same time. In the amplitude of their solvent invincibility they stand unquestioned and unquestionable, above and beyond suspicion, and should every other banking institution in the United States be overwhelmed by the waves of panic they will remain as they now are, proud and immovable monuments of stability. The banks of New Orleans are doing all they can to relieve the commercial community, and to protect the legitimate interests of trade. Were they not hampered by the unwise, unjust and impolitic law of the last Legislature, which-without doing any good to anybody, or affording any additional security of any kind to the public at large or to the stockholders -restricts them, under extraordinary penalties, from affording assistance, although abundantly able; they might and would have materially mitigated the severity of the crisis through which we have passed and are now passing. So undoubted, all-pervading and absolute, is the confidence reposed in our banks, that they might expand to almost any limit, without exciting the least suspicion or distrust in the minds of noteholders. But for the law in question they could have trebled their circulation at the commencement of the pressure, maintained the price of our leading staple, made times easy and prosperous, and saved, it may be said, without the smallest exaggeration, millions of dollars to the planters of Louisiana and the cotton States of the South-west. If the cotton-growers are being victimized daily, let them charge the fault where it belongs-to the last Legislature-not to the banks. If the commercial world is suffering terribly-if it is in the hands of merciless shavers, skinning bone deep, let the blame rest upon the proper party-upon the last Legislature-not upon our monied institutions. That Bank law is the cause of most of our pecuniary troubles. Suppose three millions of dollars were at once thrown out upon the city, what would be the result? Why, from the humblest shop to the lordliest office, relief would at once be experienced. The banks are amply able, with the unquestionable paper daily offered them, with absolute safety to themselves and the public to discount twice that amount; and they would do so, we have no doubt, but for the penalties of the before mentioned injurious bank act.
