community and the disposition to
hoard wealth in the form of money, while checking every desire to build
for the future.

_Remedies for hard times._--The means of recovery from such a disaster are
less easy to see than the causes. We know, in fact, that the world does
recover confidence among enterprising men and confidence in the future,
sometimes surprisingly soon. We can see some of the steps by which the
burden of debt is diminished and hopes are revived. In the first place,
some method of settlement out of the usual course is adopted. Most obvious
is an agreement among banks to carry on the usual machinery of exchanges
through checks, drafts and a clearing house without the use of currency.
This is called suspension of payment. It holds the deposits steady while
the transfer of ownership is easy. It saves the sacrifice of large credit
to meet the panicky condition of small trade, and it checks the
disposition to hoard money in out-of-the-way places. The actual failures
are thus confined to those actually engaged in the wasted production or
directly involved as creditors of such persons. The failures in 1873 were
said to have been nine in each thousand business houses; those of 1893
were thirteen in a thousand. The actual failures among farmers are
confined almost entirely to those who have been caught in the speculative
spirit of investment in more land for the sake of increasing prices or
have borrowed capital to be used in other speculation. A few only have
wasted their substance in expensive homes and luxuries.

If all forms of indebtedness could circulate freely, the final result in
balancing debts with debts would be quite readily reached, and the actual
losses would be found less than is generally supposed. An equal loss
without distrust, if that were possible, would be met with new enterprise
and extra energy instead of despondency.

The various remedies offered in proposed legislation frequently add to the
delays in the recovery of confidence. The issue of paper currency, while
universally welcomed by the most wasteful of investors, makes those who
still have property more doubtful as to the future. The proposition to
increase demand for labor by great public improvements comes at a time
when revenues are diminished and almost surely is coupled with a proposal
of government scrip. To increase the burden of taxation at once, when the
mass of the people are already burdened and distressed, is impossible. Th