The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-25 00:00:00

SPECIE PAYiIIEIVT.

Every appearance indicates that a vigorous effort
will be made to return soon to specie paymen. s in
the Un ted States. It is felt that the prac,ical
settlement of all disputes lies in this, and that it
can be accomplished without any great sacrifice.
Grant is said strongly to favour it, and so to sup-
port Secretary M'Cullooh's project that he will re-
tain him, if possible, at the head of the Treasury.
Senator Morton, contradicting a statement of the
orld that he was about to introduce a bill for
the immediate payment in greenbacks of the 5-20
Bonds the Government may now redeem, says
that what he urged during the canvas was not, as
reported, the recantation of what he had urged in
the Senate regarding the payment of the Five-
TwentieS in greenbacks, but the assation that the
first duty of Government was to return to specie
payment ; further maintaining that the Executive
had no right to issue fresh legal tender notes for the
payment of the bonds, although he did argue in the
Senate the right of using the existouj Legal-Tender
Note:: in payment of the Bonds. lie goes on to
say :--7" I also argued at various times during the
canvass that, whatever might be the law on the
subject, the Government could not pay the bonds, •
or any considerable portion of them, in coin, while
the currency remained depreciated, and that the im-
provement of the currency, by bringing it up to
par, was a necessary condition precedent to the
payment of the bonds in gold ; that if the Govern-
ment could not procure gold enough to redeem
$365,000,000 of Legal-Tender notes, it was folly
to talk about paying the bonds in gold ; that the
question of the mode of paying the bonds will be-
come important only by the continuance of a de-
praved currency without taking steps to improve it;
that to take the surplus gold in the Treasury and ap-
ply it to the purchase of bonds in the market, which
will not fall due for 14 years, would not be paying
the bonds,' but 'shaving' them, and would be an
improper use of the means by which the
paper of the Government, overdue and dishon-
oured, should be redeemed." These opinions he
asserts are not inconsistent with what he said in
the Senate. It is noticed that when the bonds and
greenbacks were authorized, the Act stipulated that
the latter were never to exceed $150,000,000. In
spite of this provision necessity enforced their in-
crease to not far short of three times that sum. The
argument then is that if legal, as asserted by Sena-
tor Morton, to pay the 5-20 Bonds issued over five
years ago in greenbacks, it is first essential that the
greenbacks should be reduced from thes4oo,ooo,ooo
at which they now stand, to the $15,000,000 to
which the Act limited them ; and it appears to us
unanswerable. First, the bondholders deny the
legality of paying in greenbacks at all ; next, if
legal (however immoral), the quantity in circula-
tion must be reduced to the limit fixed by the Act,
and indeed if the Government will do this the bond-
holders need require no further stipulation, fur the
cancelling of half the greenbacks in circulation
would almost equalize gold and currency in value.
The Tribune argues that the Government are justi-
fied in buying the bonds at a discount in the
market from whoever on surth terms will sell them,
and accepting the position as it really is, the Tribune
is right ; although Senator Morton may mean that
the Government made that position, and it is dis-
honourable to depreciate your own acceptances
and then buy them back at a discount. The wise
plan, however, is to take up the existing position,
and let the Government act as a banker would act,
doing the best it can for the nation, while rigidly
observing the spirit of its contract. It is an extra-
ordinary fact that men like Senator Morton cannot
see that the offer on the part of the Government to
pay in gold does not necessarily involve payment in
gold. No more would the hard money be required
in the United States than in England under the
same circumstances. All people require is an assur-
ance on which they can fully rely that they can turn
their paper into gold when they wish. This is the be-
lief which makes the Englishman prefer a Bank of
England note to the amount of gold specified on
its face. What the Washington Government re-
quires is credit,--the same belief in the redeemable
paper they issue that Englishmen have in Bank of
E'ngland notes,and the sooner theUnttedStates then
return to a specie basis the better. All sensible men
agree in this, but they split into parties when the
question comes Hew is it to be accom-
plished ?" That it is very earnestly debated is a
sign little less hopeful to the bondholders than the
pledge given in the late resolution pased almost
unanimously in the House of Representatives.