rable
depression of prices, and curtailment of profit; and in some parts of
the country, it must be admitted, there is a great degree of pecuniary
embarrassment, arising from the difficulty of paying debts which were
contracted when prices were high. With these qualifications, the general
state of the country may be said to be prosperous; and these are not
sufficient to give to the whole face of affairs any appearance of
general distress.

Supposing the evil, then, to be a depression of prices, and a partial
pecuniary pressure, the next inquiry is into the causes of that evil;
and it appears to me that there are several; and in this respect, I
think, too much has been imputed by Mr. Speaker to the single cause of
the diminution of exports. Connected, as we are, with all the commercial
nations of the world, and having observed great changes to take place
elsewhere, we should consider whether the causes of those changes have
not reached us, and whether we are not suffering by the operation of
them, in common with others. Undoubtedly, there has been a great fall in
the price of all commodities throughout the commercial world, in
consequence of the restoration of a state of peace. When the Allies
entered France in 1814, prices rose astonishingly fast, and very high.
Colonial produce, for instance, in the ports of this country, as well as
elsewhere, sprung up suddenly from the lowest to the highest extreme. A
new and vast demand was created for the commodities of trade. These were
the natural consequences of the great political changes which then took
place in Europe.

We are to consider, too, that our own war created new demand, and that a
government expenditure of twenty-five or thirty million dollars a year
had the usual effect of enhancing prices. We are obliged to add, that
the paper issues of our banks carried the same effect still further. A
depreciated currency existed in a great part of the country; depreciated
to such an extent, that, at one time, exchange between the centre and
the North was as high as twenty per cent. The Bank of the United States
was instituted to correct this evil; but, for causes which it is not
necessary now to enumerate, it did not for some years bring back the
currency of the country to a sound state. This depreciation of the
circulating currency was so much, of course, added to the nominal prices
of commodities, and these prices, thus unnaturally high, seemed, to
those who looked only at