The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-12-03

lOOklDg At the wonderful progress VI tno
country, there is reason to conclude that the
present volume Of currency will be insufficient
in the course of few years. The population
increases millions every year, and our internal
trade is growing constantly in q surprising
manner. Our trade will be doubled, proba-
bly,, in ten years, and fifteen millions or more
will be added 20 the population. Will there
not be required a corresponding amount oil
currency And If we are all the time grow
ing thus, with an increasing necessity for more
currency, is it not evident that we shall gra-
dually and BEAUTIFULLY come up to specie pay
ments, should the present circulation be left
undisturbed
Everything is established upon our present
currency basis-all debts, all obligations of
whatever kind, all property and all the trans
actions of business and life are established
upon it, II legislation or the action of the
Government in any way forcibly disturbs
this state of things, and it be not allowed to
regulate itself by the ordinary course of events,
would not that violently change all values and
obligations Rich men and creditors, and
especially the bondholders, would be benefited
but debtors and the poor must suffer. The
means of the industrious classes would be
reduced, the burden of taxation would become
insupportable, and the revenue of the Govern
ment would become insufficient. 1t is said by
the contraction theorists that forcing specie
payments would benefit the laboring poor,
wages decline in the same proportion Wages
would fall probably more than prices, while
the demand for labor would necessarily be less
on account of the less amount of money to
employ it. If the laborer and farmer pay
more for what they have to buy, they get more
for their labor and produce. There is no class
OF the community that would be benefited,
and hardly any that would not suffer, by
forcing specie payments, except the rich and
the bondhOlders.
England tried this forcing process in obedience
to the clamors of the rich and the bondholders
after the exhausting wars with the First Ma
poleon, and the consequence was seen in con-
tinued revulsions, financial distress, and gene
raj pauperism. The masses of the people had
no voice in the Government and the great
capitalists, the Jews the landholders and the
bondholders had it all their own way. The
history of England from 1877, when the
efforts to force specie payments commenced,
to about 1925, when this was reached, is
history of commercial disasters and distress
The resumptonists found the difficulties so
great that the Government had to extend
the time of resumption, though bent upon
forcing it. Long after that, indeed, there
required the most terrible periods of suffering
from the same cause. More than once Eng
land, with all her stability, was brought to
the verge of revolution. The history of that
country should teach us to avoid the evils she
suffered.
But suppose we should never have me-
tallic currency, what harm would be done J.!
Who would suffer If the currency be paper
or gold, iron or brass, it is the same for one as
for another-the same for all. Whatever the
Government makes legal-tender is the money
of the country, and all values are based upon
it. One material is as good as another for the
purposes of internal trade, and paper is fully
as convenient, or perhaps more convenient,
than gold and silver, Indeed, If we had a
metallic currency tomorrow, by far the
greater part of transactions in trade would be
done with paper, with paper checks, notes, or
bank circulation. 1t has always been so, and
all the specie that we ever had in the country
would not be sufficient for the purposes for
which paper is used in one form or another.
The historian Alison says great CONNER
cial country should have two currencies-paper
money for internal trade, and specie for pay
ing the balances of foreign trade. This, in
fact would be but one currency; for gold would
be only an article of commerce, answering the
same purposes as cotton or any other COM
modify in paying the balance Of foreign trade.
Our legal-tenders answer the first purpose
now, and our annual crop Of eighty or ninety
millions of gold and silver answers the other.
The great advantage is that neither England
| nor any other foreign country can disturb our
internal trade or financial affairs at home while
we have paper currency. They cannot drain
that away from us and create financial distress.
With purely metallic currency we should be
always at the mercy of foreigners. They could
put the screws on at any time and drain
enough specie away to produce trouble. 1t is
for this reason chiefly, we suppose Mr.. Alison
recommended a paper currency for home use
in great commercial nation. If the national
bank circulation were withdrawn, as it ought
to be, and we had a uniform legal-tender cur
rency, we should realize, in great measure,
Mr.. Alison's idea. 1t may be that this repub-
lic is destined, through its experience, to esta-
blish new and improved system of currency
and finance, as it has initiated other great
reforms in the world. Will Congress take up
this subject in broad and comprehensive
point of viewY At all events, any further con-
traction of the currency should be stopped,
Mr.. MCCullochs power to do evil should be
taken away, and il the President will not vol
UNFAIRLY remove his incompetent Secretary of
the Treasury, Congress should demand his
removal and the appointment of statesman
in his place.