Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-09-04
The Fears of AN Inii ted Currency
If the Bonds are Paid i'm Green

backs.
The great fear of the bondholders, who
draw princely fortunes from the untaxed
bonds, if these evidences of indebtedness
are paid in greenbacks, which they submit
as an argument why they should be paid
in gold, is, that their payment in legal
tender notes would so flood the country
with paper as to make it mere drug on
the market-so depreciating its value that
l. would, as was the case with the Confeder-
ate money at the South, force the citizen to
take one basket to market to hold his
| money, with smaller one in which to put
his provisions. And there are men, so
gulled by this fallacy as to believe it has
foundation in truth. Let us examine this
bondholders' argument.
The greenback is legal tender for all
debts due from man to man. 1t is receiv-
able for Government taxes. In the pay
ment of these taxes, millions of dollars are
every year returned to the Government,
and thus the greenbacks are redeemed. II
there is too much currency afloat among
the people-money really so plenty as to
become a drug on the market-the refusal
of the Government to reissue them, within
a single year, would cure the evil, by so
reducing, gradually and surely, the volume
of circulation, as to do away with the ex-
cess.
When honest bankers find that they have
more of their notes in circulation than is
needed. or safe, they Immediately curtail,
by refusal to pay out their own notes,
and thus they contract their circulation.
So with the Government. If there are too
many greenback notes afloat-so many that
they are in danger of depreciation-they
are destroyed, as the Bank of England de-
stroys every note of its own paid into the
bank. 1g
So far from the argument of the bond
holders against paying off the general in
debtedness in greenbacks having tend
ency to initiate the currency to an unhealthy
state, the effect of doing away with Ma
tional Banks and using no paper money
except that of legal tender notes, would be
exactly the reverse. The Government
would then have it in its own power to
make the currency of the country stable
and uniform-sufficient for the wants of
trade and commerce and the everyday
business of life, and not redundant enough
to jeopardise its decrease in value.
AS we before said, if there is more cur
rency afioat than is needed by the people.
the Secretary of the Treasury will refuse
to reissue the greenbacks that come into
the Treasury by way of taxes paid i'm
Government land sold, for postage, etc.
The more economically the Government
Is administered the greater its power to
control the currency. If the country suf-
fer for want of sufficient currency, then
new issue of greenbacks can be made to re-
deem Government bonds when due. If
none art due, we can purchase those which
become due at less than the interest which
the Government would have to pay before
they matured. Thus could the currency
of the country be kept at an amount nec-
essary to do its business-so equalized that
there would be no need of sudden expansion
or contraction, such as we used to have in
old bank times, which made the rich richer
it would be stable and uniform, to-day and
tomorrow the same.
In such arguments as these we have COM
mented upon we think the bondholder, who
is anxious to alter the terms of his con-
tract SO that he can get gold for that which
was to be paid in paper, makes confession
Of weakness, for his argument, when sift-
ed, works against him-the evils he pre-
1icts are the very reverse OF those likely
TO happen.