Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1864-07-01
VOL. XV---NO so.
High Prices...The True Cause.

1t is quite the custom just now to at
tribute the present high prices to an
expanded currency. We are fiippantly
told that this is the one cause of com.
mercial arrangement, and that if the
currency were only reduced to the stand
ard of three years ago, prices would
come down in the same proportion. Let
us think a moment, and we shall see the
utter absurdity of such a conclusion
No matter what is the medium for ma
king exchanges, or what is currency, or
what is lawfully-whether it be gold, or
bank notes, or treasury notes-aOdr
high prices. Europe learned it during
her Napoleenic wars; we learned it in
the war Of 1872, and the same stern
teacher compels us to submit to it now.
The reason is clear and simple. Produc-
ton is diminished, and, by the aUdste of
war, consumption is increased. The
war draws the farmers sons from the
plow, and fewer acres are sown and
smaller harvests are repeated. The me-
chanic arts suffer in the same proportion.
Scarcely less than two-fifths of our adult
male population are now devoting all
their time and energy to putting down
the rebellion. OF these, a vast number
are in the field with our brave generals,
large parC uidIl Jul sHlpS VI war, HOW :
counted by hundreds, and many are in
hospitals; while those employed in the
navy yards, iron-works, machine-shops,
and in the manufacture of military
clothing and equipments, and in produ-
cling munitions and supplies, swell the
aggregate to the limit we have named
This great class Of producers cannot be
withdrawn from their ordinary pursuits
without great diminution in the pro-
duets of the country. When the supply
is greatly diminished, and the demand
not only continued but increased, prices
mast advance. There is no possible help
for it. If we could return to specie
basis tomorrow, it would still be war
basis, at war prices.
There is but one exception to this ad-
vance in prices, and that is the Govern
ment bonds, and they are no exception
to the rule, and only follow the general
law of supply and demand. The neees-
sites of war have made them abundant,
and therefore they are cheap; but when
the war ends the supply will cease and
they will be dear-and the man who
invests in them now is sure of a liberal
profit.
A reduction of the currency will be
well, and we have the official assurance
of the Secretary of the Treasury that it
is now taking place, but it is not the in
fallible panacea for financial disorder
that many suppose. Mr.. Cisco, the AS
sistant Treasurer of the United States at
New York, states that he has cancelled
forty-one millions of interest bearing
legal tenders within two weeks, and that
he now holds thirty millions of green
backs yet bread and butter, wheat,
corn and cloth are no cheaper.
The first cause of the increased cost of
all commodities, gold included, is alto
gether outside of the currency. A re-
dundant currency increases the misfor-
tune, but does not create it. But
suppose the Government does contract
the currency; what is to prevent the
State banks, that give no security for
circulation, from quadrupling their pa
per issues, as they have already done in
many parts of the country? What,
then, can be more absurd than to make
the Government or Treasury Depart
ment the scape-goat for evils that are
simply consequent upon the most gigan-
tic war the world ever knew. If the
body has a fever, is it just to make the
hand that supplies its wants responsible
for its unnatural condition ?-New YORK
Examiner Of J,pae 23d.