The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-12-14
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
HDIEOR1AL oPIEIoEs OF THR LEADING JOURNALS
UPoN OURRKET ToPICs--CoNPILED KvKRT
DAT FoR EHR EVENING TELEGRAPH.
what In natIon Means.

what In aatIon Means
Prom hhe N. T. Nation.
There is general expectation aI 'niS "li'iuS
That the success Of the effort TO put stop 10
lbe contraction of the currency will be followed
I'm bv an equally successful attempt at fur
ihar imitation. Into the expedienoy or mex
Dediency Of arresting the process of contraction
we shall not here enter at any length. There
ia a good deal to be said against this mode of
uetting back to specie payments as well as for
it. Unquestionably, If the whole Of the green
backs were swept out Of existence during the
coming year, gold and silver would rush in to
fill their places, but they would have to be
bought like any other commodities, and we
are Ill prepared just now to buy them. The
greenbacks have the recommendation of being
the cheapest currency that can be devised,
and the nation is certainly not ready just yet
to 90 back to the more expensive substitutes;
and it is possible that the Withdrawal of even
four millions a month is more than the coun-
try is yet able to bear
It is suffering first and foremost from the
enormous waste of labor and material which
occurred during the war. No country can
absolutely fling away-we are now speaking
simply eoonomically-$2 000, 900, 900 worth of
labor and the results OF labor inside of four
years, and get all over it in two years. II is
suffering next of all from the most vexatious,
unpbilosophical, clumsy, and demoralizing
system of taxation to which any country in
Christendom was ever subjected. We say in
Christendom, because we are willing to admit
that in certain MOhammedan countries the
present revenue laws of the United States
have been surpassed, if not in number and
Complexity, at least in unreasonablenesS and
disregard Of the taxpayers comfort and welfare.
d. AZ - 4
pretended to be politicians in our sense Of the
word, or to entertain any regard whatever
either for principles of human nature or the
experience of mankind. Our fnanciers do
pretend to be politicians, and occasionally in
moments OF great excitement even call them
selves political economists. The two things,
therefore, that the country most needs are
time and opportunity to replace its lost wealth
by economy and hard work, and the freedom
Of trade from vexatious pursuit at the hands
of the tax-gatherer. With these two, rapid
and complete recovery, within very short
space of time, is tolerably certain.
We believe most firmly that there is more
money ahoat than the country needs to carry
on business. A country can hardly have too
much money in it if the money be specie. If
there is too much, it will be exported for the
purchase of things that people want more.
The beauty of gold and silver is, that if you
do not want them other people do. You ship
them of and buy "luxuries" with them, and
are none the worse for it. With paper money
pend on the demand, but on votes in Congress-;
and if more is issued than is needed there is
no way of getting rid Of it. Nobody out of the
country in which it is issued wants it, and the
people on whom it is showered are obliged to
meet its redundancy by using more Of it in
their transactions; or, in other words, raising
the price of their commodities.
But, supposing certain quantity of paper
money once issued, and prices adapted to it,
and no more of it to be issued, the country
adapts its business to it, no matter how large
the quantity may be. We might be just as
happy and prosperous paying $50 in green
backs for pound Of coffee as we are now
when paying forty cents, if we were sure there
would be no more greenbacks put in circula-
tien. But the curse of greenbacks and of all
paper money is that we do not know how
much of it will be put in circulation. As long
as Congress is what it is, and there are en-
gravers and printing presses in the United
States, no human being can tell whether there
will Re more currency in existence next year
than in this, or whether there will be less. In
other words, what makes this paper currency
detestable is that as long as we have no other
there can be no certainty in business; and
next to time and industry, certainty about the
future is just now what the country needs to
recover.
If everybody will agree to let the currency
alone for the next five or ten years, neither to
contract nor expand it, we shall get on per-
fectly well, if we know that then, or within a
reasonable period, the Government will be
prepared to redeem it in coin, or even to begin
to redeem 1t gradually. Paper money has
many advantages. II is light, portable and
cheap It is Objectionable because it is q kind
of money that ignoramuses or knaves can
easily tinker, or innate, or contract and be
cause, therefore, as long as it is in use the
fortune of every man in the community is al
the mercy of ignoramuses or, knaves. Al
long as eighty or ninety men in Washington
of whom only a small number have ever il
their lives devoted one hours tattsntiOn to
the study of any financial or economical
question, of whom probably very many go t.
Congress with such notions of the laws of cur
rency as circulate in village bar-rooms, anC
of whom many more may be the mere
tools of spectators, can any day run &
bill through under the previous question or
dering the Secretary of the Treasury to dimin
ish the money Of the country by one hundred
millions, or increase il by one hundred mil
lions, no man can lie down at night knowing
what the value of his goods or house or lands
or debts will be when he wakes up in th'
morning. Under such system no country
not even this, could prosper or recover from
prosrauon and from this system there is NJ
escape exeep in a return to specie. Contrac
ton Is painful process. If performed sud
Gehly OF rspiaiy 1t may prove to hundreds o
thousanos rulnous process. 1t is open Il
precisely the same objection as inhation IL
that IL Is an aipitrary change of the value o
property but it is superior to imitation in tba
It leads back to dry land, while imitation laad
ont 40 hOund1ess and unfatb bo,o ~ -