Report on the Depression of Commerce, by the Committee on Mercantile Affairs. Senate....No. 104

Boston: n.p., 1869. First edition. Stitched paper wrappers. Marginal dampstain along bottom edge, ownership stamps of S. H. Holbrook, Jr., "Fancy Pigeons," otherwise clean, a good+ copy.. 31 pp. 8vo. The majority report by Samuel D. Crane, J. G. Ollard, AA. Burrage, Elliot Montague, and L.B. Church, and a much longer Minority report by Nathaniel C. Nash, an India merchant opposed to monopoly, and Levi S. Gould. Gould would go on to become the first mayor of Melrose in 1900. The committee argued that the Civil war caused the financial problems which would be solved by (1) a return to gold, (2) a support for our shipping - "Foreign ships in the main are the carriers for American merchants in imports and exports. Our ship-building is well nigh extinct. We no longer hear the resoundings of our hard ship-builders in ship-yards and dock-yards? Why? It cost $85 a ton currency to build a ship in Boston; $45, gold, in any of the British provinces" -and (3) a reduction in import duties; the minority report concurred but stated it was more than the war that caused the depression: they suggest the extraction of revenue from the Railroads which have benefited from government largess but which return little or nothing to the government would boose government revenues substantially. OCLC shows only 2 copies.