Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1865-02-09

Prof Goodwin Smith, of Oxford Univer-
sity, one of the most influential of our
friends in England, who spent toward the
close of last year three months in this
country, has written several letters since
his return to England, stating his impress.
sions of the American people, their patriot.
ism and their ability for peace or war as
nation. he entertaius an unbouaded
admiration for our people, and while he
critziees he also eulogizes them. By the
last steamer we see that he has written an
elaborate letter to the London NepS con-
concerning our finances. He considers
our finances our weak place. Wequote as
follows from his letter:
& wentto America convinced that amidst
30 much that was truly great, the financial
administration was the weak point; and
have returned with that conviction terribly
Oon6rmed.
"The root of the mischief, l venture to
think, is the Legel- Tender act. That meas
ure not only subverted the faith of private
contracts, but lowered the public credit,
and is doubling the eventual burdens of
the country. 1t was popular with the
l.
or to deprive his creditor of halt the debt:
and the debtor interest included large
number of the farmers, either as morIgag.
Ors or as purchasers of land for which the
full price had not been paid. 1t has sub.
jected persons living on fixed incomes, who
for the most part are politically weak and
submissive, to a confscation of half their
means OF subsistence. 1t has deranged
prices to such an extent that when 1 was
in Illinois the wages of a skilled mechanic
equslled the salary fixed by the constitu-
ton for judge; and it has thereby multi
piled strikes, and introduced into industri.
al relations malady which will not easily
be expelled. 1t has filed trade with con-
fusion and almost annihilated credit; and
if it has thus indirectly put stop to GER
tain amount of gambling speculation, it
has created a speculation in gold more
gambling than anything to which it has
put stop. But it worst effects, ana those
which will be longest felt, are the effects
produced upon national credit and com.
mercial morality by every act of question:
able legislation.
From the Legal-Tender act it was but
a natural step to the proposal made by
member of the Finance Committee, in IN.
conscious imitation of the Reign of Terror,
for forcing greeubaoks up to par by penal
legislation.
THE advocates of the Legal Tender act
are loud 10 their praises of a national ps.
per currency. But the Legal Tender act
and a national paper currency are, as
sir gle glance at the financial facts of Eu
lope must show, quite distinct things, hav-
ing no necessary connection with each
other. Aud it is to be remembered that
the smash Of local wild cat bank is. at
worst, local evil; whereas, if the national
eIcheQuer becomes wild cat bank, and
smashes, the evil viii be universal.
"Within no long time It will be confess
ed that the Legal Tender act was the most
wastefui, as well as the most unfair in its
incidence, of all imaginable systems of
taxation.
IF you touch upon the subject in Amer
lea, the common answer is, You cannot
talk you suspended specie payments and
made bank notes a legal tender your.
selves" Satisfied as they are apt to be |
with this retort, Americans do not inquire |
what were The economical and financial |
enects, immediate and ultimate, offs mea.
sure which, although anterior to the gen
eral diffusion Of knowledge on economical |
SUBJECTS, was opposed by themost eulipht. |
ensd and upright economists of the time. /
Nor DO they reflect that as our war was
Waged to great extent abroad, and By
means of subsidies to foreign powers, il
was necessarily carried on partly in gold.
The melancholy part of the matter ia
that the people demanded nothing of this
kind. The peop!s were ready for q sound