The Portland daily press., 1873-10-10
Resumption,

The correspondent of the New York Times
in treating the financial question, says of the
gradual resumption of specie payments:
For many years the amount of our circulat-
ing medium has been in excess of the reason
able needs of the country. 1t is now claimed,
and it seems justly, that the business of the
country fully demands its present medium of
seven hundred millions There must therefore,
be no contraction of this medium. There must
be only substitution of gold for part of
that medium. This is gradual resumption.
This is the only time since the close of the war
when the condition of our foreign exchanges
has permitted serious thought of the posi-
bility OF such substitution. Nothing but the
great Improvement in our situation as regards
foreign countries, aud the certainty that for a
considerable period this improvement must con-
tinue III largely-increasing ratio, renders
such plan practicable to-day.
After long suspension, in which values, no
longer measured by gold standard, become If
regular and unsettled an immediate restoration
of their true relations is difficult and unequal
1t was saying of that wisest and and most sa-
gacous of American Statesmen, Albert Gala
TIM the financial Nestor by whose counsels the
country was led through the reyusion OF 1887
up to specie ,ayments, that the agony of the
resumption is far more terrible than the agony
of SUSPENSION that it is harder to submit to q
loss which may be avoided or postponed, or
perhaps shifted to another's shoulders to aid
resumption The moral tone, once impaired, is
with difficulty restored, either in individuals or
communities.
Fortunately, there is no need of such suffer-
ing now. The worst has been rapidly passed.
The contraction of values has been sharp and
sudden, but thorough. The deposits line of the
New York banks alone has fallen off $51.000,
600 since the 18th of September contraction
of twenty-five per cent. There can be no furth-
er contraction. There will be no further gene
raj decline in va1uaS There will he Slralv an
equalization between those which have fallen
too low and those which have not yet felt their
share of the depression. 1t may safely be said
that no values have wholly escaped. What are
we to reap from this sudden restoration of true
values? Shall we hold steady where we are,
and gradually recover our old financial stand
ing by gradual resumption, or shall we drift
along in another expansion and another panic,
or another imitation? Can there be any hesita-
ton? Surely we shall choose the better path
prosperity The long promised day has at last
dawned-the day when by ten years of unex-
ampled prosperity, the business of the country
has "grown up" to the full measure of the cir
culating medium. Shall we not now endeavor
to harmonic our system with the systems of
all other civilized nations-to return to gold as
a standard of values?
In abiding to the policy of the Secretary of
the Treasury in connection with his policy of
retaining the gold in his possession and the
large imports of coin from abroad, the writer
says:
The coin must come, aud gold will fall to par
in spite of the Secretary. His brief authority
will be powerless to sustain the market against
arrivals for market, and none will feel tempt
ed to buy gold against such importations as are
now promised. The Secretary has been meas
ured in the balance and found wanting. Never
in the history of our country has so great an
occasion been so hopelessly neglected. What
ever other fame the Secretary may achieve
that of finance minister has passed from hi
forever
When gold falls to par and there is no long
er profit or hope of profit in holding it, it will
pass from hand TO hand as of old But this is
not resunp ton, nor yet single step toward it.
1t can only be held in the currency by the pro-
vision of place for its use. This can only
come from from legislation. The appeal will
be taken from the Secretary to Congress When
this important session is opened there will be
found two distinct propositions awaiting its APP
prevail, and the country narshaled behind the
one or the other in columns in which political
opinions will have no place. From the one will
rise the cry for more imitation, more green
backs, from the other a stern demand for
gradual approach to coin. There need be no
doubt about the peoples position. Every man
who lives by his daily labor-the bone and sim
ew of the country, the American artizan, the
Irish laborer, the German OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES an
immediate daily interest N the return to specie
payment; Only let it be made clear to them
that there is to made no immediate resumption,
no contraction and suffering, but only gradual
and careful substitution of coin for paper, CON
tinued when gold is at par and money is plenty.
arrested when either gold advances or money
becomes dear, and there can be no divis IN of
opinion.
1t is now of the greatest im Importance to fully
put before the people the entire feasibility of
this plan of gradual resumption, and to destroy
the popularimpression that gold prices mean
word specie payments has been so used be-
fore the people, that it has become as much a
terror as the red flag to France-a terrible ban
ner to be waved before the eyes of the people
on every occasion when the interests of class
are to be protected or sustained at the expense
of the whole.