New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1854-11-28
SHAM DEMOCRACY AND THE CURRENCY.

The Governor Of Ark snsas recommends to his
pass a law forbidding his people at large from
using anything but gold and silver in their trs
actions with each other. This Is what is called
free trade, and is entirely 10 harmony with the
views Of our neighbOrs of The Post, to which we
some days since called the attention of our readers.
Free trade is certainly q curious thing. The
free traders who have 90 long controlled the
operations of the State of Pennsylvania, have
prohibited the men who have labor, coal, iron, or
any other commodity to sell, from exercising their
own judgment whether they will receive in pay
ment for 1t piece OF paper promising to pay one
dollar or the dollar itself. They have been des.
rous Of increasing the necessity for using gold and
silver, and one Of the consequences of this is
found in the fact that money Of every kind
has become go scarce as to be worth two
per cent. per month. So, too, with the free
traders Of Ohio, who have manifested their love
for fir, edom of action by prohibiting their people
from receiving in payment any but certain kinds
of mo1ey, which act has come into force at
moment " hen money is there becoming unattain-
able. Everywhere throughout the country the
love of free trade is making itself manifest in the
increase of prohibitions as to the mode of trade;
but, unhspply thestroDger the determina tiOn that
the people shall use nothing but gold sod silver,
the greater is the tendency toward the use Of
shinplatters; and here We find striking resem-
blance to the last period of British free trade.
Gen. jackson was determined that gold aud sill
yer should supersede bank notes, and Col Benton
solemnly proposed that gold should be made to
" flow up the Mississippi" to such an extent as
to supply all the demands Of the western States;
but, unfortunately, the more they determined
that it should flow up, the more British free trade
caused it to flow down, until the whole people of
the West were left high and dry, and were glad
to avail themselves of shinplssters of the poorest
kind, by help of which to float their goods to
market. So it is already in Indiana, and so will
ii be in Ohio, Illinois, and other western States,
al Of which are now calling on the East for sup
plies Of gold TO enable them to stem the tide aud
carry up stream that which tends, in obedience
to inevitable laws, to float down stream. The
effort is useless one. The gold is wanted; aud
when il shall have gone, and when shinplasters
sball have taken the place that under the former
tariff was occupied by money those States aud
many others that should have kno whit already will
have learned how utterly ABSURD il is to attempt
10 maintain specie circulation under system
that produces constantly unfavorab balance
of trade, requiring the payment Of money in the
settlement Of accounts. The thing is so absurd
that nothing short of the faith of British free
trader could induce sOy one to believe in IT,
With all the gold of California at our command
we should have stopped payment long since had
il not been that the railroad companies of the
ountry have furnished constant supply of bonds
royi6ipg for The payment of enormous interest;
ut even that mine is now worked out and the
old must 60, and shiDplasters must take their
lace. We commend, therefore, most heartily,
the efforts Of our free trade and sham democratic
friends, believing that when the people shall fad
themselves without gold or silver, and forced to
do e sewhere as they now do in Indiana, take the
notes Of banks that do not even profess to pay
money for them they will come to the cOncIu-
sion that there is some truth in the old proverb,
which says that "whenthe blind leads the blind,
"they both fall into the ditch"
Sham Democracy sets itself against the small
note that enables man readily to pay for penny
Newspaper published at distance from him, and
would deprive even the subscriber to our daily
journal Of all means Of remittance except 10 the
form of gold or silver. Real Democracy saws that
the greater the facility Of making small exchanges
the larger will be the number Of exchange. made,
and therefore it Ia that in the really Democratic
States Of the North small notes are everywhere
used, while utterly prohibited st the South, whore