The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TIMES.—We shall not pretend to emulate Ameri-
can contemporaries in speculating on the causes
which have given rise to the resignation of Mr.
Chase. Whether it be that he thus resents the
imputations cast upon him by General Blair, not,
as was commonly believed, without the inspiration
and encouragement of Mr. Lincoln; whether he has
not yet abandoned all hopes of becoming President
himself; or whether Mr. Chase feels that his part
is played out, and that he is fortunate in escaping
from the duties of disentangling a web which has
fallen under his hands into such intricate confusion,
we do not care to inquire. Enough for us that he
is gone, and, like Ulysses of old, has left behind him
a bow which no one else will be able to bend.
Whatever be the talents or courage of his successor,
he cannot hope to achieve the wonderful feats that
Mr. Chase had accomplished. We may have great
poets, but we never can have another Shakespeare,
for even if his genius were to descend on another
mortal, we cannot give him the pare and untried
language out of which he wrought his wonderful
conceptions. Even so America can never have
another Chase, because she can never offer to any
man the same extraordinary amount of material
prosperity, oreated out of the riches of a virgin soil
by all the art and science of advanced civilisation,
which Mr. Chase found, and which it has been his
lot to destroy. If Themistocles was a proficient in
the art of making a small city into a large one,
Mr. Chase is a least equally entitled to claim the
credit of making a great State into a little one.
Yet let us not be unjust even to this mighty master
in the art of ruin. Candour must admit that the
problem set before him admitted of but one solution
—a solution more or less complete, according to the
genius of the philosopher to whom it was submitted.
That problem may fairly be said to be—Given a
nation determined on war, thirsting for revenge,
insatiable of empire, steadily resolved to conquer,
but equally resolved to conquer without any im-
mediate personal or pecuniary sacrifice, to extract
from it men, materials, and money. As regards met,
the resources of voluntary enlistment were very soon

exhausted, conscription did not yield what was re-
quired, and the only resource left was to bribe into
the ranks those who could neither be forced nor
persuaded. Thus enlistment very early became a
question of pay and bounty, and the supply of men
speedily resolved itself into the deeper and more
difficult problem of the supply of money. How,
then, was money to be obtained According to Old
World traditions, the first step would seem to be to
increase to the utmost possible limit the taxation of
the people. Bat Congress, with a keen eye to its

own re-election, was unwilling to impose unpopular

burdens on its constituents, and it seems alai the
whole contribution which the United States have
made towards bearing by immediate taxation the

expenses of that mighty war in which they are en-
gaged has been the collection of a sum of ten mil-
lions, by which the war revenue of twenty-four mil■
lions exceeds the old peace revenue of fourteen mil-
lions. Ready money, then, being out of the question,
there lay before the eyes of Mr. Chase the boundless
and enticing field of credit, and the question natu•
rally arose how the credit of the community could
best be employed towards satisfying its enormous
demands. To an ordinary mind the question would

have been between the issue of Government securi-
ties and the inflation of the currency. It is here
that we recognise the hand of the master. Instead

of troubling himself, as a common man would have
done, with arguing the respective merits of these
two schemes, Mr. Chase's mighty mind elevated it.
self above the controversy, and determined to re-
concile the conflicting merits of worthless paper and
depreciated stocks by boldly grasping both in the
same scheme, and working at once the issue of
bonds to the utmost extent to which they could be
sold, and at the same time over-issuing inconver-
tible paper till it requires some two hundred and
fifty dollars in paper to purchase a hundred in
silver or gold. Nay, more, as if these desperate
expedients were not enough, Mr. Chase's genius
contrived to combine them ; he contrived to sup-
press the notes issued by private banks ail over the
country—notes varying in value according to the
state of the currency in each province; and by
giving the banks leave to issue Government notes
against Government securities he contrived to obtain
the very utmost that could be got upon credit from
a people firmly resolved upon war, but still more
firmly resolved that only by borrowing and tamper-
ing with the circulating medium would they contri-
bute to its expenses. These great principles once
thoroughly understood, the career of Mr Chase be-
comes simple in the extreme ; like Columbus's egg,
the whole difficulty disappears the moment the
manner of action is explained. The maxim which
lies at the bottom of the system is to banish from
your mind all idea of paying the principal, and, in
order to make the required sum which is never to
be paid as large as possible, to be particularly care-
ful with regard to the payment of the interest. In-
terest, according to the school of which Mr Chase
may be considered the founder, is not a sum paid for
the forbearance of money,—it is rather a bait by
means of which fresh money may be obtained. As
long, therefore, as more money can be got, the in-
terest must be paid with the utmost punctuality ;
the sum borrowed may have sunk by the deprecia-
tion of the currency to two-fifths of its metallic
value, but the interest must be paid in gold, although
by that means the charge is more than doubled.
Having thus done everything in his power to drive
gold out of the country, Mr Chase's system required
him to do everything in his power to keep it back,
and hence a number of operations which consisted
in selling at a loss whenever gold showed an incon-
venient tendency to rise, and expelling it from the
country by prohibiting those who dealt in it from
selling it like any other commodity in open market,
with the intention, when no more money was to be
borrowed, of repudiating first the interest, and,
after a decent interval of suspense, the principal.
If any one doubts the truth of this picture, let him
ask himself by what means he supposes that the
present currency of America is to be restored
to the standard before the war, or how he can
suppose that any one in his senses who ever
meant to pay would be borrowing money at a rate
of interest more than double of that which it nomi-
nally bears. Let us, however, be just to Mr. Chase.
He had not many weapons in his armoury—he had
premises which he could break—he bad a currency
which he could debase—and he had some gold,
which, if not wasted in the expenditure of Govern-
ment, might do good service in alluring fresh subs
scribers to his ever open loans. He has used them
all to the utmost. Actual money he would also
have used if he could have got it. But it would be
unjust to deny that he has done all that could be
done with the two great substituted powers, bound-
less abuse of credit and the investing worthless
paper with the privilege of legal tender. He has
not saved his country, but he has given her, in ex-
change for inevitable ruin, a very fair opportunity
of dragging down the rebellious South into the
same destruction with herself. The wisest thing
he has done is to watch the gradual inflation of the
bubble, and to leave the agreeable task of assisting
at its bursting to Mr. William Pitt Fessenden, a
gentleman said to be a firm believer in Mr. Chase's
system. Such faith at such a moment merits that
crown of martyrdom which it is assuredly destined
to receive. It is really not worth counting by how
many hundred millions of dollars the expenditure
of the present year will exceed not only all the
revenue, but all the loans which can be contracted,
or• by how many hundred millions more the esti-
mated expenditure of the coming year will exceed
the estimated revenue, nor what is the precise figure
of the present funded and floating debt of the
United States. These vast sums lose all their sig-
nificance for want of a unit in which to calculate
them. Sir Robert Peel asked, " What is a pound ?"
and the question was answered; bat who can tell
us what is a dollar ? It has been 4s 6d—it has been
is Bd. What it is to-day no one knows—what it
will be a month hence no one can even imagine.
There is no fixed point, the abyss has no bottom,
the lever no fulcrum. This is the chaos over which
Mr Fessenden is called on to preside. Nothing in
Mr Chase's administration has been so wise as his
leaving it, and it will be very difficult for Mr Fes.
senden to do anything more foolish while he is in
office than he has already done by accepting it.

POST.—If the truce which has been concluded
between Denmark and the German Powers should
form the introduction to a permanent peace, no
State will feel more sincere satisfaction at such a re-
sult than Great Britain. It is for peace that our
Government have persistently striven since the very
commencement of the Dano-German dispute, and,
though their efforts failed of success, they will
find in what has now taken place the most con-
vincing evidence that the hopes which they ven-
tured to entertain were not entirely Utopian. Den.
mark, having failed to obtain through the media-
tion of the neutral Powers terms to which she con-
ceived she could with dignity assent, has now
treated with her adversaries directly, though upon
what basis is not precisely known. It may be
assumed that the conditions of peace will be less
favourable than those to which the German Powers
gave their acquiescence at the Conference, but it
does not therefore follow that eventually Denmark
will suffer more than if she had blindly yielded to
the dictation of the German Plenipotentiaries. We
are too apt toreproach with their misfortunes those
whom we are unwilling or unable to help, and in the
present instance we must confess that Denmark has
received almost as much censure from her friends
as from her foes. Whenever she adopted our advice,
but nevertheless failed to benefit her position, we
unhesitatingly ascribed the failure to tardiness she
evinced in following
out. counsels ; and whenever,
on the other hand, she refused to accept our guid-
ance, we took immense credit to ourselves for