The Perrysburg journal. [volume] (Perrysburg, Ohio) 1853-1861, 1855-01-27

payment OF interest, making tOtal OI eiBnty
millions, in discharge of which we sent
twenty seven millions of gold, and some
thirty or forty millions of bonds, represent
ing debts that have yet to be paid. In the
last fiscal year, the adverse balance was
about forty-fve millions, to which has to be
added twenty millions for the payment Of
in discharge of which we sent thirty eight
millions of gold, and probably four-and-
twenty millions of bonds, the interest upon
which has to be paid in this, the next, and
every succeeding year, until the principal
shall be discharged. All this being well
known to the President, to the Secretary, to
the Union, and to its kindred journals. it
may be regarded as striking evidence of their
conviction of the correctness of their views
that they all so StudiOusIy aUoid reference to
the east mass of public debt that is being
created, or to the enormous amount of interest
required to be paid, and constituting the first
offset against the food and cotton aue export.
This perpetual drain of specie is the cause
of all our present difficulties, and it is, it.
self, consequence of the system called free
trade-that system which looks to giving
Great Britain monopoly of the manufac-
turing machinery of the world. Whenever
it has prevailed among us we have been
forced to export specie and bonds-as in the
period from 1918 to l824-from 1888 to 1912
and from lS47 to the present time and
therefore it is that it has always been follow
ed, as it now is attended by distrust among
banks and merchants, by boarding of specie,
and by ruin to the community.
Credit is rapidly declining among us, and
boarding is as rapidly increasing, and both
must go on until the point of ruin shall be
reached, unless we have change of policy.
tending to prevent the drain that now exists.
The time has come, as we are told by the
Union, for change but in what direction :?
Towards the adoption Of policy that shall
tend to set our own people 10 work to pro-
duce the things we now import, and thus
diminish the necessity for exporting gold p
Certainly not. That would be nndemOcratic,
for it would tend to diminish distress among
the poor, and lower the rates of interest now
obtained by the rich. The change proposed
is towards the further closing Of mills, ia
tories and furnaces; the further discharge of
workmen; the further dependence on Europe
for a market in which 10 sell all we produce
and buy all we need to consumes the fur
ther manufacture of bonds and the further
export of coin--all of which must inevita-
bly, produce further decline Of confidence and
further boarding Of the precious metals.
That such is the tendency OF the meas
ures proposed by the dominant party in Con-
gress is we'll known to all our readers, and
their adoption can have no other effect than
that of stopping more mills, more furnaces,
and more roads-the work in, or upon.
which will never again be resumed until we
shall have change of policy in the oppo-
site direction-and this is nearly as true Of
the measure proposed by the Secretary of the
Treasury, as by that of the committee of
ways and means. Neither of these will do
anything to restore confidence, or to give
employment to our people, or food to their
now starving wives and children. If, how
ever, they desire to know what will do so,
we will tell them. Let them repeal the act
Of 1916 and replace that of 1912 as the law
of the land, and confidence will then, at
once be restored, for all will see that the day
for exporting bonds and specie has come to
an end. Money will then again become
abundant and cheap. Hoarding Will then
cease, for all will see that property is bound
to rise in value as our people become from
,lav to day more enabled to sell their labor.
Mills, factories and furnaces will then again
be opened, and new ones will be built ma
king demand every where for laborers and
and giving them every where the
means to purchase food and clothing, which
now they have not. Roads that are now
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