The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1858-01-20
MEMORIALS, ETC.
From the Albany Argus aud Atlas!
THE sUB-TREASURY AND THE RESUMPTION.


THE sUB-TREASURY AND THE RESUMPTION.
Various causes have been assigned for the rapid
sumption of the banks of this State after their suspension
but the appears to have been lost sight Of The
operation of the independent treasury has characterized
the difference between the crisis of 1887 and that of 1857
both as regards the suspension and the resumption
specie payments
In the first place. 1t is evident that the suspension in
this State unnecessary It did not grow out of any
demand for specie the part of bill holders out of the
panic of the general public 1t the result of blunder
ing and dscoant action upon the part of the
of the banks Of commercial metropolis The opera
ton of the there would have been eectua
in maintaining their specie payments but for these
of management
The operation OF the independent treasury to
mulate gold in proportion to the aggregate of impota
lions and of land sales by the general government and
to pay in proportion to the expenses government
When mporations are active to excess, it holds to,
draws out the banks and other depossries these
specie reserves and forces them to contraction when
it, in turn, begins to pour out its accumulated
upon the community and back again into the banks.
The process is somewhat like that which the Emperor
Napoleon has recommended to prevent the alternate fresh
and droughts Of the Loire and other rivers of France
and which engineers have suggested to equaze the
flow of the Ohio the construction of artificial reservoirs
which would receive the excessive rains of the spring and
retain them till the heat of Nature has sup
piled such reservoirs to the Rhine and the Rhone in the
lakes of Switzerland in which they and their tributaries
rise and has only to initiate the forecast of Provi-
dence.
The accumulated of gold in the independent
treasury constituted fund upon which the banks and the
people could draw when the panics set in but the
of the institution for several years had already infused
into the circulation large amount of specie that the
condition of the country, compared with 1887 far
better suited to resumption.
When the banks did suspend gold at premium and
this fact distinguished this failure from that of 1887 If
gold had been at premium the phenomena which would
have attended suspension would have been far different
We should have had active upon both the city and
country banks and struggle between the different insti
buttons for exstencesuts by individuals and popular
demonstrations of hostility against institutions which re-
fused to keep their paper at par That this not the
condition of the banks and the public was owing to the
immediate action, and the silent influence through years
of the independent treasury system. When govern
ment receives and pays out during year some
tyfve millions of dollars in gold its influence steades
and controls the currency
The resumption after the failure of 1887 was only &C
compished when the banks of New York had sent dep
utaton to London and purchased five millions of gold
from the Bank of England Now, in 1887 our banks are
able to spare that amount to England