Weekly Trinity journal., 1870-03-12
The Basis of HIonopoIies,


The people of California have been so long
and so skillfuly educated into the belief that a
metallic currency is indispensable to their peace
and comfort, that they appear to have never
taken into consideration the enormous prices
they pay for the privilege which they, alone OF
all cizilized countries, enjoy. Paper money, in
all other civilized countries is held as essential
to commercial progress, as electricity and steam
are for the same reasons. 1t facilitates trade.
1t would be quite reasonable to refuse 10 EN-
ploy electricity, because occasionally some per-
son is destroyed by it, or to refuse the services
of steam because boilers burst sometimes, AS 1t
is to condemn paper money because speculative
banks have done so too.
ThroHgh the use of a currency worth more
everywhere else than here, we pray at least
twenty per cent. more for everything we use
food, clothing and house rent-than we should
had we a currency of the same value as that
used by the nation generally We shall not re-
Quire our readers to accept our say so on this
subject, but shall call TO our aid the statements
of those who oppose the Introduction Of the ma
tional money as the basis of trade, and by them
shall prove how dearly the people pay for the
poor privilege of having metallic currency in
name, but very little of any currency at all, In
reality.
One of the commercial papers states that the
loans made in San Francisco, alone, in one year
]
about $l5, 600, 600. Taking this as true, what
other community in the world pays so dearly for
its money! This interest is four times the
amount OF the taxes on real estate and personal
property 10 the city and county. Just imagine
we pay four times as much tax on the money
borrowed as we do on all the property in the
city 1t literally costs four times as much to
keep the bankers and usurers as it does to sup
port the State and city governments. Accord
] in Ia calculation DgOUle
thirty per cent. interest for money TO conduct
their business, while in New York, the people
obtain the same accommodation at hive TO ten
per cent So that the borrowers of money in
this city alone pay $40, 100000 for the privilege
of using metallic currency. A people who bor-
row 500 900, 900 annually certainly must expend
much more, calculating that we pay only twenty
per cent more here for what we require than 1t
costs in New York. The papers say It costs
twice as much to live here as there, so that we
have another $40, 200, 600 10 pay for the luxury
of "a metallic currency.
la return for this enormous profit the bankers
and money dealers pay less than $4,000 per an
mum for licenses, while they actually refuse to
pay a cent of taxes on their money loaned. They
stand delinquents on the city auditors books.
These are but the smallest items OF the cost OF
the metallic currency. Itis the metallic currency
which causes the whole business of the State TO
be one vast network of monopoly, which de-
stroys honorable competition in any business.
Our stage lines, steamboats,, water-works, our
imports and exports all are controlled by mo-
nopolists, whose great power lies in our metallic
currency, and we have thus shown what it costs
the people to sustain that class of despots. Under
republican form of government the great mass
of the people have no danger to guard against
equal in magnitude to that arising from mon0p-
oies- combinations of classes for class purposes.
These are the causes that lead to the conflict
between capital and labor They form the
foundations from which flow the footed streams
Of arstocracy which flooded and overwhelmed
the republics of antiquity.
We are well aware that we are found on the
unpopular side of this question. The public
mind has been falsely educated into error by a
vicious or ignorant press but sooner or later,
the subject must engage the attention OF states
men. 1t must be plain to every understanding
that there is not enough of hard money in the
country to answer the purposes Of trade, and
that paper currency is one of the results of an
advanced civilization V0rkmymaH' Journat.