The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1868-01-30

average rate at which money Is loaned,
! for the reason that if business was
more profitable than the rate OF inter
est at which money is loaned, the money
| lenders would cease lending money,
and employ their capital in business;
and hence all writers on political econ
oiny tell you that the net profit on the
business of country generally approx
imates very closely to the average late
which money is loaned and borrowed in
that country. Now, it would be a
high estimate to say that the average
rate at which money is loaned in the
United States is ten per cent. That
certainly would be high enough. Our
rate of interest is six per cent; in New
York tits seven per cent; but if you
take it at ten per cent, then the net
profits of the industry United States
of agriculture, manufactures aud me-
chanical productiens-wOuld be two
hundred million dollars. That is high
er than any statistician has yet estima-
ted it to be. am not speaking now of
the profit a merchant makes III buying
commodities and selling them again; be.
cause that don't increase the wealth of
the country one particle. You can not
increase the wealth of a country un-
less You can make something. | an
speaking now of bhe net productions of
all Neutrality-suspicious. aud manulac-
lures of all kinds.
But your Government draws from you
seven hundred millions year, which is
FIVE hundred millions year more than
the net profits of all the producing bus
iness of the United States; in other
words, they are contiscating your prop
erty, they are encroaching every day
upon your capital. Every sun that rises
finds, when it sets, the people of the
Unlcd States, as people, poorer than
they were when it rose. So it must be
as long as this condition of things exists.
If you don't go back to the simple aud
frugal days of your fathers if you un-
dertake to keep up this great and mag
niticent establishment we have; if you
will have a navy that costs you now
more than the whole Government used
to cost you, ard that in time of pro-
found peace; if you will have an army
large enough almost for a European
Power; if ynu will have the country
filed with office-holders to eat out your
substance and harrass your people; if
you will have this, you must pay for the
" histle, and you will find it the costliest
whistle that you ever paid for.
If you will have Freedmen's Bureaus,
if you will have the country taxed and
impoverished TO give negroes the right
to vote and set them over white men; if
sou will submit to this thing for tie
purpose of suGjeeting One-third of the
Republic to anarchy, to confusion, and
ultimately TO war of races; if you
willrdo all this for the pleasure of being
ruled over by the Radical politicians,
why my friends, you must agree to
grow poorer day by day, hour by hour,
and minute by minute, just so long as
that state of things shall exist. But, in
my humble judgment, you are deter
mined that the expenses of this Govern
ment shall be brought down within
reasonable limits; that at least one half
Of these Ollice-holders who are living
upon your substance shall he turned
ont and put to honest work. TO them |
say, in the language of the New York
Tribune, Root hog or die Loud
laughter and applause.
BONDS ASD GEEESBACKS.
| say to you now, my friends, as
had the honor of saying to you back of
this conrt house last September, you
must refuse to pay the bonded debt of
this Government in any other way than
rs you agreed to pay it. Where you
agreed to pay it in gold, pay it in gold.
That is very small matter. There is
gold enough in the Treasury now to
pay almost every single bond payable
in gold. But as to these tive-twenty
bonds, amounting to abOut two thous-
and millions, it is simple impudence in
any man to pretend that this Govern
ment ever promised to pay their prin-
cipal in gold. The interest we did
promise to pay in gold, bnt the princi-
pal never i'll anything but what is the
legal tender of the country. There is
not a man who has pointed out statute
that promises the five twenty bond
holder that he shall be paid his princi-
pal in gold. He bought his bonds with
greenbacks when greenbacks were
worth not more than thirty-three or
forty cents on the dollar in gold; and
it is simple impudence on his part to
say, II gave forty cents for these bonds,
but the government shall give me a
hundred"
We will be just, and nation is Just
when it fulfills its promises. 1t is not
bound to do any thing more than fulfill
its promises. say, then, that we must
cut off nearly one hundred and seventy
millions of this burden that annually
rests upOn MS in the shape of interest,
by paying these bonds in the legal ten
dor of the country.