The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-03-18
mirht we Resume Forthwltht :


tejoin.
We decline to speculate as to the amount OF
circulating medium annually needed by our
people, because no sure conclusion can be
reached from data so loose and uncertain; but
one element which J. S. p. ignores we will ask
him to consider. With a restricted currency.
most of the commercial transactions of the
country are based on credit. Goods are
bought of the importers or manufacturers on
credit; sold by the jobbers to the retailers on
credit and distributed on credit to the con-
sumer. Three to mine months afterwards Gf
ever the consumer pays for them in produce,
and the accounts are somehow liquidated-
no money or next to none, having been en-
ployed from first to last. Laborers for hire
are paid in produce, 'Orders or "store-pay q"
not five per cent. of their earnings taking the
form of money. We do not consider this a
desirable mode of etfecting exchanges; yet,
with a restricted currency it is inevitable.
With an ample currency, there is no excuse
for paying for labor, produce or goods other
wise than in cash. and a billion is needed
where q tthe of it was formerly made to
answer. We consider half million a mode
rate estimate for our present needs.
What we propose is, that the currency be
allowed to adjust itself to the wants of the
community, as it will do if we simply allow
the greenbacks to be funded in Hve-twenties
at the pleasure of the holder; and that is
what the Government once pledged itself to
do. Dust read the back of 50 greenback if
you doubt it, Whenever the currency shall
prove redundant, the greenbacks will be con-
verted into Five-twenties, and the national
banks thus forced to contract until an equili-
brium is established.
We are still unable to assent to our CORES
pondent's assumption that, upon resuming.
we should need credit of 5000, 900, 900 in
Europe, or its equivalent in coin, ''merely to
ease the demand for specie here" We insist
that our creditors in Europe would be more
likely to increase than reduce their invest
ments in our securities upon the strength of
tidings that our Government had resumed
specie payments; and we hold that our imports
would be diminished and our exports in
creased as immediate consequences of resump-
ton. We might even draw gold from Europe
because of the temporarily favorable rates of
exchange, as we actually did in 1861; and it
must be borne in mind that our product of
gold and silver is so great that we gain specie
whenever our exports thereof do not exceed
our imports by more than $4,000, 900 per
week.
The Seven-thirties are all that remain to
embarrass resumption; and these are now
DClhS OOuNtIIcu lnJO IlN6-JWeuIlGS dJ Jllb rate
of several millions per day. That is to say
the holders of Federal securities soon to fall
due are gladly exchanging them for bonds at
lower interest, which the Government is not
at liberty to pay for five years, and need not
pay till the expiration of twenty years. The
Seven-thirties, then, at the worst, can only
serve as bugbear for a few weeks longer:
while we do not admit that their conversion
would be arrested if we should resume to-day
H. is imitation that
all manner of wild lands, gold mines, oil
wells, etc. ETC., by holding out prospect of
vast and rapid gains. Give us instant re-
sumption, and most thrifty people would deem
six per cent, untaXed very good interest
In eight money Market" the heaviest
capitalists would prefer six per cent. on Gov
emment bonds, always readily convertible, to
twelve on mercantile paper, liable to be
Whisked into the gulf of general bankruptcy
Lastly, as to the operators in gold" We
calculate that the bulk of this class would be
Just about like flies on frosty November
morning. They would break the Govern
ment, would they With what The cross
ing-sweepers of London, should they conspire
to run the Bank of England might doubtless
crowd her doors, and make her neighborhood
tumultuOus; yet ''the old lady in Thread
needle street, wouldsbe apt to withstand the
pressure. So the Treasury, backed by the
solvent interests and capitalists of the coun-
try, would Withstand the most desperate
charges of the gold gamblers.
FOr-and this our correspondent seems
Stubbornly to ignore-the interests bound nm
lnthe success presumption are as strong TODAY
as those of the bummers, and would be ten
times stronger from and after resumption.
Those who had been betting their pile on per
sistent initiation and national insolvency, would
be generally "cleaned OUT by the mere fact of
resumption. They would be very nearly in
the position of the great bully in Albany, who,
when the banks suspended specie payment in
1887, electrified the vast mob collected on the
street by jumping up and smaclling his fists
together, eagerly eXclaiming, 81 wish to God
that 1 had a S5 bill !-Fd make 'em pay,''
Doubtless the bummers would like to break
the Treasury; but the 500, ,0O0, 600 in cash or
its equivalent required for that nice operation
wouldn't be in their hands exactly.
On the contrary, those who have been living
magnifcently on the interest of what they owe
would have sharp work to find money for their
daily marketing or to pay their weekly board
bills; while the solid capitalists the sound
bankers, the fund holders-and with them the
army the navy, the Ofice-hOlders, the multi
tudinOus clerks and other employees living on
fixed salaries-would all realize that it was for
their interest that specie payment should be
maintained. The banker who owes 5000 600 in
all, and has $1,000 due him from the Gov
ernment and from solvent customers, must
realize that he will be worth at least S25, ,00O
more if resumption stands than he will be il
we sink back into national insolvency. Rail
road men will say 'lIold on to resumption
and we will buy engines, cars, rails, chairs
fuel, oil, etc. ETC., cheaper than now, while oul
receipts will not long be essentially reduced >
Even the poorest widow of dead Union sol
dier will say "My IS per month will buy
hpaaH and o1O fnp hoh if 90