The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-11
BRITISH NOTIONS OF AMERICAN

From the ". Y. Herald.

EfO"t dtt AN' 4 DcfuW,
The London press seems particularly anx-
ious about American credit abroad and in q
sort of patronizing manner gives us a great
deal OF gratuitous advice with regard to it,
John Bull is nothing if not egotistical and pa
tronlzlng In his manner. Englishmen, and
English journalists in particular, think that
all the financial knowledge of the world is
concentrated in their little island. Specializing
on the debt of the United States and the ru-
mored project of the Treasury Department to
raise loan for the purpose of reorganizing
the debt at lower rate of interest the Lon
don Times reads us q lecture on national
credit and honor. 1t wants gold payments for
our ive-twenty bonds, and makes labored
argument to show that this would be to our ad-
vantage. The secret of this pretended anxiety
about American credit lies in the fact that
large amount of the Five-twenties are held in
England, and that the certainty of the United
States paying them in gold would send their
value up on the market from eighty. two or
eighty three to a hundred, or over that. ga
bargain is a bargain, this leading London
journal exclaims. That is a self-evident
proposition, and the bargain we have made
ought to be carried out-the bond ought to
be paid, even if, like Shylocks, the demand
be usurious. Yet in paying it to the last cent
according to the bond, we should be doing
what England or any other great nation of
Europe has not done with its public debt.
But the question arises here, what was the
bargain made and how are we bound to pay
the fve-twenties? Many of the members of
Congress who passed the law creating that
debt, and notably among them the late Thad-
deus Stevens and other foremost men of the
country, assert that it was not intended that
the principal should be paid in gold unless
the Government chose to so pay it. And the
fact that it was not so expressed on the face
of the bonds, while on another class of secu-
rites gold payment of the principal was pro-
missed, shows the intention of Congress to
pay the fve-tweuties in currency if the Gov
ernment chose to do so. This, we think, is
conclusive. At least the question was left an
open one, and there is no reason why the law
should be strained to favor the bondholders,
who got the bonds for little more than half
their par value in currency, and who have
been well paid already. If the bonds go up
to par in gold ir the ordinary course of things,
all very well; but there is no reason why
the Government should unnecessarily increase
the weight of the debt and the burden Of the
taxpayers for the special benefit of the bond
holders.
1t is said the credit of the United States
would be raised and loan for consolidating
the debt at lower interest could be made on
better terms if the five-twenties were Off
fallacy. If Congress were to make such a
declaration the bonds would go up immedi-
ately ten or more per cent. on this side the
Atlantic, and higher still, probably, in
Europe. Then what would be the effect in
making a loan to reorganize the debt at lower
interest? Would the holders of six per
cent. bonds, which might be at par or over
in the market, surrender them without pre-
MUM for four per cent. stock? Would any
man in the ordinary transactions of life make
such a sacrifice? And what would it be but
a species of reputation if the Government
were to compel the holders of six per cent.
bonds to take without premium four per cent.
ones in their place? The lower the bonds
are in the market-that is, if they be not
forced down by any action of the Government
the more can be saved in transforming the
debt to positive gold bonds at lower rate of
interest. 1t would be folly, then, to force up
the market price of our securities before re-
adjusting the debt.