The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-09-29
SPIRIT OF rHn PRESS.
Ic editorial Opinions of the Lending Journals
Trpon Current tTopics-OOmpilod Every
nav for the Evening Telegraph.
THE SURPLUS GOLD IN THE TREASU-
RY-THE TARIFF.

safeguard against its recurrence, is the re-
moval of its causes If we were not afflicted
with the Republican absurdity of two different
kinds of money of equal values, there could
be no gambling in gold; as, in point of fact,
there is none in England, and was never any
in this country in the era of specie payments.
Gambling in gold, when gold is the ordinary
standard of values, is simple impossibility
If an English merchant wants gold, either for
expectation or any other purpose, he has only
to go to the Bank of England and present its
notes, and he receives an amount of gold
equal to the presented notes. 1t would be
absurd to pay premium for what he can
thus always get without premium. Money
may be scarce or plenty but so long as specie
payments are maintained, paper money is just
as good as metallic being convertible into it
at the pleasure of the holder. The crazy and
ruinous gold-gambling which prevails in this
country is one of the many evil consequences
of the double system of money introduced by
the Republican party. England, in the early
part of this century, kept clear of the absurd
ity of two different kinds of money in the col
lection of her revenue and her ordinary fiscal
transactions. She collected the duties on
imports and paid the interest on her public
debt in the ordinary currency of her internal
commerce-the notes of the Bank of England.
Gold bore premiums during the greater part
of the period of suspension; but she did not
speculation in it by creating unnecessary oc-
casions for its use.
What could be more absurd than our pre-
sent system of collecting duties in gold, then
selling the gold for greenbacks, then using
the greenbacks for the purchase of bonds?
After the gold has been collected, why not
pay it out directly for the bonds, instead of
the clumsy, roundabout process of making
the debased greenbacks the medium of pur-
nhn hoo olyc ora tha Il,o
Government prefers to use, it is absurd to
bring them into the Treasury by the circuitous
method of first collecting a kind of money it
does not want, and then exchanging it for
another kind which it would better suit the
convenience of the importing merchants to
pay directly into the Treasury. Why put the
importers to the trouble and expense of buying
gold, subjecting them to the extortions and
rascality of the gold gamblers, when the Gov
ernment does not want the gold, has no use
for it when it has got it, and sells it out again
for greenbacks to use in its own transactions?
The process by which a million dollars in
greenbacks get fleeced on their way into the
Treasury is this:-First, the merchant Oet us
suppose the transaction to have commenced
last Friday goes into Wall street and buys
gold at 100, giving his check on a bank for
$1,000, 600 for the $625, 200 in gold which
that amount of greenbacks purchase at 100.
The $625,000 in gold is paid into the
Treasury, which sells the same gold on
Saturday at 1872, receiving for it 1895, 200 in
greenbacks, which are Immediately used by
the Treasury for the purchase of bonds 1t
has cost the merchant 81, 900, 900 in green
backs to get SS925, 900 in greenbacks into the
Treasury, whereas, if the Government had
taken the greenbacks directly from him, it
might have received the same amount it gets
at the end of all this circuitous bother and
have left the merchant clear surplus of
$4,000, which he has lost; which the Gov
ernment has not gained which has gone to
enrich the gold gamblers to whom so absurd
fiscal system furnishes an easy harvest
The loss of merchants without any gain to
the Government is not ordinarily so great;
but there is always real loss unless the
gold brokers do business without profit.
The Government processes to regard them as
set of scoundrelly vultures, and yet it sup
plies them with employment and makes their
occupation indispensable, by requiring their
Intervention for getting greenbacks into the
Treasury, when the merchant has the very
greenbacks the Treasury wants deposited in a
city bank, and might transfer them directly
10y the inexpensive process of drawing his
check. The end and upshot of the whole
cumbrous circuit of transactions is merely
to get greenbacks into the Treasury yet
the Government refuses to receive the
greenbacks from the merchant, and COM
pels him to pay toll to the gold brokers
for nobodys advantage but theirs. The
Government makes additional trouble and
bother for itself, exposes the mercan-
tile community to pillage and loss by the
gold-gamblers, and merely gets at last
the very greenbacks which the merchants
would gladly have paid, and saved the heavy
tolls given for the needless intervention of
the brokers in gold. The Government thus
feeds the scoundrelly vultures it so vehe-
mently denounces with employment and pre-
miums, by making their trade indispensable
for supplying the Treasury with greenbacks
The Government forces the whole stream of
the customs revenue through their mill; it
voluntarily makes its credit the sport of their
Vaccinations, and the whole mercantile com
munity the prey of their rapacity; and then
makes show of virtuous Indignation that so
absurd q system bears it's natural fruits
There might be greater waste and folly; but
could there be more glaring absurdity?
1t Will be said in extenuation that the
Government has bound itself by pledge to
the public creditors to collect the customs
revenue in gold; and that the absurdity we
have exposed is incident to the fulflment of
that pledge. 1t will be said that it is only
the excess of revenue, beyond what is re-
quired for paying interest, that is converted
into greenbacks This is a worthless excuse;
for why should there be an enormous and
constantly accumulating excess? Gold
enough to pay the interest the Government is
no doubt pledged to collect; but the pledge
does not bind it to accumulate vast surplus
of gold for conversion into greenbacks The
surplus is one of the evil consequences of the
exorbitant tariff, which oughtto be immediately
cut down to the actual wants of the Government
Gov fba ,,avrnant of inferaat tn hoS baar