The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-08-10
COMMERCIAL ARD FINANCIAL.

Amount of Currency In Circulation
.--Balnnce In the Treasury.-.AEe the
0-2Os Payable In COIn?--1h he August
7-3Os.
The most Important features of the
Treasury statement for August are
those which relate to the contraction
that has been going on in the currency.
The following is an exhibit of the
amount OF currency now in circulation:
August l.
Compound interest siOS s., 49,
Green ~. l64, s4i
Fractional CURE ncy 55s 7O
Total SSO4 SIS A.
The amount in the Treasury is the
enormous sum of sl75, OOO, 900. If two
thirds of this sum were at once devoted
to the purchase and cancelling of 1905,
it would involve a saving to the Treas
ury at the rate of ten millions of dol
lars per annum. What the Secretary
orthe Treasury may do in this connec-
ton, would be interesting TO know, but
it is not probable that he will attempt a
contraction of the currency, nor is it
probable, with SO large II balance in the
Treasury, that he will attempt an eX-
us nt ultkIll uOs ny tue ISSUE Vi
the fifty millions OF three per cent. GER
titicates, to take the place of the COM
pound interest notes, for which he has
authority.
There will be but little interest paid
out by the Government until Novem-
Der when the semi-annuaI interest will
fall due on large amount of the 5-2Os.
1t will amount TO S24, OOO, 900 in coin.
correspondent of the philadelphia
Ledger asks the financial editor of that
paper to explain why the $50 bonds
can not be paid off in greenbacks, since
it is not stipulated in the act that they
shall be paid in gold. The editor an
swers his correspondent as follows:
The laws authorizing the Secretary of
the Treasury to borrow money on the
faith of the Government are all worded
very much the same-as well those
passed before the act declaring paper
leRal-tender for the payment of debts.
as since-and the Government has
never considered or offered to treat its
liabilities on account of its bonded debt
other than as payable in coin. The
question, after the Legal-tender act,
was raised whether payment ofinterest,
and oil principal at muturity, could not
be paid in the deprecated currency of
the Governnent-in legHl-tender notes.
Secretary Chase answered this, not
only by his action in paying in coin all
the time he WAS at the head of the
Treasury, but by being interroga-
ted on the subject, explicitly de-
clared that it was both the duty
and the policy of the Government
10 so interpret the laws authorizing the
loans. All the Secretaries of the Treas
ury from that time to the present have
acted as he did, and expressed the same
opinions as to their duty to pay in coin.
Not any ofthe laws Of Congress author
Izing loans, say word as 10 the kind Of
money in which it shall be repaid.
They all pledge the faith of the nation
to repay a given rate of interest, and the
principal on a given day. All these
laws, when speaking OF money, allud-
ed to that recognized by the Constitu-
necessary to describe it. There was but
one kind of legal money before the re-
bellion, and the laws authorizing loans
before and since have not recognized
any other. The face of all the bonds
promising to pay read the same in this
respect, except the act ofMarch 3, 1868,
authorizing the 1910 loan, which was
passed afler some question had been
raised by the passage of the legal-ten-
der act, and after Secretary Chase had
been interrogated on the liability ofthe
Cover nment to pay in gold. That law,
to allay all questions on the subject,
directs that the principal and interest
shall be paid in coin. But both law
and custom are on the side of paying
all tie bonds in coin, and it is not at all
probable, If, indeed, it be possible, for
the go vernment to go back on itself in
this respect