New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1868-07-14

in casb. and il she uses only gold currency,
her people pay, in the annual interest on the
cost of their circulating medium at III per cent''
one million dollars per annum, which Is the
heaviest kind of tax on the exchanges OF IN
ternal commerce of the State, and an
enormous drawback on its industry.
To avoid the expense OF the use
of gold as medium of exchange,
or rather (for this is the form which the trans
action assumes to the farmer or merchanD to
sell his goods to a customer who cannot afford
the gold to pay for them, the system of per-
sonal credit is resOrted to, I. C., all goods are
sold and labor performed on book account,
storerOrders, notes, and other promises to pay
The net cost of exchanging values IN tins man
ner is, on the whole, greater in the end than the
cost of using gold would be- if it were accessl-
ble The merchant who sells on SIX months
time adds not only ten per cent for the inter
est on his money during the credit, but twenty
thirty, or fifty per cent. for risks OF every
kind, including possible rise on the goods
he is selling, and insolvency of his customer
An exchange of values, which an abundant
paper currency would have enabled to be eff
fected, by the use of medium which never
cost more than one per cent OF the values ex-
changed, in the absence of o paper currency
thus involves a loss or shave of from ten 10
fifty per cent. on the values exchanged. The
people of California have been greatly staggered
to comprehend how the Atlantic States have
prospered, even under deprecated paper cur
rency. while California has been relatively at
a stand-still, despite the solidity of her specie
currency. If law were passed for Illinois
l.. az tNln
of land should use pillow that would cost not
less than 81 900 for that purpose 1T would seri-
ously diminish the amount of plowlng done IN
Illinois. So California, by requiring-whether
by statute, or by common consent, or dlstrust
of our national currency-that every producer
or merchant who would exchange $1,000 worth
of goods, shall employ an implement that costs
1000 as the medium of exchange, seriously
diminishes the number and safety OF those ex-
changes of property on which the growth OF
communities depends, and vastly increases theH
expense. The point is, that though size De-
lieves in cheap hardware, cheap Implements
cheap labor, and in having every
other means of production and industry cheap
and accessible to all, she, with some incOnsist-
ency, confines herself to the dearest of all inn
PIGMENTS LOT eIIeCblUS CANHdnSto VI piOP
erty. The natural result is stagnation in the
internal commerce of the State, slow sales,
long credits great dearness of capital relatively
to labor, extOrtionate margins of profit and yet
slow annual earnings, with that most unhealthy
of all industrial Indications the disposition OF
her farmers to ensave her laborers, so graphic
ally described in a recent letter by the same
correspondent relative to the condition OF the
Indians and Chinese in California.
We would not disguise the evils which arise
from the depreciation of our present paper
currency. But we think far more important
and indisputable are the advantages which
arise from the existence, security, and accessi-
bility of the paper currency itself. We want
to see it brought to par with gold and we
believe 10 part of our country would be more
benefited thereby than the Pacific States, to
whom it would furnish at once an inexpensive
and abundantly secure medium of exchange,
which they have needed more than they have
generally been aware.