The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1857-09-15
gbansbills 9aiIn, sournal.
Our Currency.|

Our Currency.N - III
While our community were excited by
the alarm caused by the recent financial
explosions. We deemed it prudent to
avoid any remarks that should increase
the distrust and fears that preyailed.-t
Since confidence has been restored, in
degree. and the subject can be discussed
calmly, some suggestions may not be IN
profitable. We, have approached nearer
to the verge Of avorsex Of general sus-
pension Of specie payments. than is gem |
orally supposed. If the confidence in
the superabundant harvests had not sus-
tanned general credit. q panic would have
followed that would, undoubtedly, have
closed nearly all banks North Of the
Chesapeake and the Ohio. and repeated
the experiences of 1886 and 80.
Our currency is almost exclusively
founded upon credit Our bank notes
are as much bills Of credit, as CONNER
cial bills of exchange. Their chief ba-
sis is in the commercial value of our
products. If confidence in the prices Of
these can be maintained, they are a
good substitute for specie and arrest
the demand for it; for an Eastern debtor
will take thousand dollars in -four from
the-west instead Of the specie, il he be-
lieves he can make i've OF ten per cent.
on it but II there be no prospect Of
profit, or danger Of loss, he takes the
specie. ,ss.)s}s1 7s.ls 49, ~.
d, Unfortunately the recent financial
panic occurred just at the period. when
the prices Of our products were unsettled.
and were rapidly declining. Shipments
have been hazardous !; and our abundant
new crops-if they had been brought
freely into the markets-would have
been unayailable-at the prices at which
they were heid-to pay our Eastern
debt. But held back from the market,
they have been as dead commercial cap
I ital as silver ore in'the mines of Mexico.
4 knowledge of the existence Of album
dant- crops, checked the panic, by a
belief that We had ample means to pay
our Indebtedness. Butwhile those crops
are withheld from the market, they will
give us no relief IF the farmers persist
in refusing to sell at current prices, there
can be no shipments, and consequently
no exchange; and if We can make, no
exchange, we must give up our specie to
our Eastern creditors. Every dollar in
specie, taken away from US, makes it
necessary for the banks, to withdraw two
or three dollars Of currency, in the shape
Of bank notes. Money grows tighter
AMI individual credit, is circumscribcd in
ten fold ratio. AS the pressure in
! creases, prices fall and the attempt
I which the majority of farmers are now
! making, to hold back their crops and
force up prices, will have most power.
full effect to depress all prices, and in
particular the prices OF the articles they
are holding back. 90 - 80 81. -.
At present little is being shipped East
consequently there is no Eastern ex
change being created. The whole Yves
is drained Of it. 1t has attained pre-
MUM Of two and three per cent. which
gives profit of one and ohe-half or tw,
percent. on the shipment of specie. Ev
cry dollar of specie that can be got will
inevitably be RENTED as fast as it can b
gathered up. to the East. Our banks vii
continue TO curtail, till they have with
drawn large share Of their circulation
and the means to buy and ship our pro
duce will be gone from US. 1t will be 9
little moment what the quantity Of on
crops may be, if there be no money
buy them. We may have return {
the condition of things in 1910. ]
would be better for the agriculturolisr
let his wheat 60 forward at seventy cent
abushel to pay off our Eastern debts
and thereby preserve our specie at home
and Keep our circulating medium to a
amount that viii enable the merchant
get the means to buy all the crops Of tn
year, at fair prices, than by holding bac'
the crop in the vain hope of forcing u
prices to dollar, and by so doing pro
duce arrangement of the currency
that will make it impossible to sell a
prices that the demand would ctherwis
warrant. The farmers, in the end, ma.
produce state Of affairs, which, instea,
of securing them a dollar bushel, ma.
force them to take fifty cents.
1t is very evident that the West can
not maintain its present position yer.
long. 1t must ship or it must stop pay
ment. 1t cannot ship without being con
tent to accept current prices If it viii
not ship now-it will not long have tn
money to buy and ship at all. It mus
yield to the present condition of the mar
kets-or repudiate its payment, -ant
do worse in the end.