The New York herald., 1862-10-18


oE.y i,s brighi aide and make the worse appear
the better reason Ia an exceedingly useful ac'
campilshmea. Car crimna. lawyers exce' Ia
. ts..s art and car readily transform a toa mur
: der into an Lr'ort.Ea,e acciden. o. a specal
visitation oe rsovldeace hssi ..,. broker,
{ are 70. far behind The lawyers, and with fe '
strokes 81 ss,e pen ccnver, r;ckety old farm
house standing saeso!a,e il the r,ds' Of bar
ron common prolin. son'y in weeds and this
ties, into an elegant villa sursunded by spa
cious lawn Theatrical manageks are n2 dabsters
at this wonderful art, and tLei genius reLcsrs
a beggarly account Of empty boxes into :
crowded AID fashionable house, ar,,' changes q
histrionic numscuil, all rant and bl,> 'ter. into
the greatest dramatic artist OF the age. .lkvhose
electric flashes Of inspiration dazze and bew,>'
der the most intelligent audiences. Political
editors are generally equally expert, and repre-
! sent their corrupt candidates as patriots and
their contemplate assemblages Of wirepullers,
Office h,nrers and shoalder hitters as immense
mass meetings, tremendous outpourings Of tho
people and Overwhelming gatherings Of loyal
| freemen. All these Masters Of the art of dis
guising henest truth benelth deceptive, gew-
eaw phrases must give place, however, to the
| experts OF Wall street. who ses,m to have i'm
proved upon Talleyrand both in principle and
practice, and who use language not only to
conceal their thoughts, but to hide from the
public plain. undispused facts.
To say that gold las risen to thirty
three per cent premium is pleasant
nf ctatiu MT hon
deprecated thirry-three per cent. Practi
caily. in their conversation and reports, the
Wall street ffnanciers make paper the standard
and talk as If gold had risen above the standard
'Fhe fact is, as they and everybody else know,
that gold is the standard. and that paper has
fallen below this standard and is ut large dis.
count In word, the one dollar bill you have
in your portemonnaie is wogth, according to
yesterdays quotations, only sixty-seven cents.
That information affects you in quite different
way from the stereotyped announcement that
gold has risen. Youdo not care how high gold
may rise 80 long as your bank bills are at par
The delicate sophism Of the money changers
leads you to forget that it is not gold that rises
but paper money that falls. Every time that
the premium on gold increases the bills in
your pocket lose in value. Your riches, if they
happen to be in paper money, take to them
selves wings and fly away in spite of you. You
find that the prices Of coal, Of four of butter,
of dry goods, of clothing, of all the common
necessaries Of life, also rise with gold. The
main secret Of this rise is that the merchants
with whom you deal can only give you sixty
seven cents worth of articles for your dol |
lar bill, worth only sixty seven cents;
and so they raise their prices In order to bal |
anee the discount on paper. II you can afford |
to hold on to your bills till the war is over |
they may regain their original value. If you
must part with them now-and nearly every
one must-then you are certain to suffer.
1t being understood, therefore, that the rise
in gold is really depreciation in the value of
paper, the people inquire who is responsible for
this great depreciation? We answer, Secretary
Chase and the present Congress. The Treasury
Department has been most grossly mismanaged.
Secretary Chase had q sound system of finance
prepared for him by practical men; but he does
not know how to manage it. If the system now
in operation had been properly carried out
paper could not have deprecated more than
eight per cent by this time. There is nothing
either in the condition Of the country or the |
position Of our armies to justify the present |
large depreciation. If the war had been weigh |
ing upon US for ten years, aud our prospects of
success were still doubtful, then there might be
some excuse for such premium on gold. But
the war has lasted but a year and half, and
its fortunes are indisputably in our favor, and
STILL on the very days that great Union victo-
ries are announced, the premium on gold in
creascs. Clearly, then, there is mismanagement
in the Treasury Department. If Secretary
Chase had pressed upon Congress, at the open
| ing of its last session, the immediate necessity
| of a Tax bill, and had followed this up by
| Tariff bill, Bankrupt bill. and bill
taxing local banks we should have had
none of this trouble, and the legal tender
notes would now be but little, II at all, depre-
cated. Instead of this, Secretary Chase seemed
contented with the passage Of the acts autho-
rizing the issue of legal tender notes. The
Tariff bill Vas passed some time later. The
i Bankrupt bill and the bill taxing banks were
not passed at all. The Tax bill was at last
forced upon the stupid, tinid, ignorant Con-
gressmen by public opinion speaking through
the unanimous press In the meantime Secre-
tary Chase devoted himself TO interfering with
the War Department, intriguing for and against
! our generals, and organizing radical abolition
| political party, with view 10 the next Presi-
dency. The bills for supporting and maintain
ing his legal tender currency we're postponed.
| The Confscation and Emancipation bill en-
crossed his whole attention. Even at this late
day the application Of the Tax bill is delayed,
as the military draft has been, for fear Of infu-
encing the elections. This Is sacrificing the ma
ton to o party most rsmorselessly.
| Il is not too late to remedy oil this, however.
The example Of William Pitt, who carried Eng