The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-04-15
Watering tho Currency-Congress Au-
thorizes the General Piunder OF sns
People.

People.
Yesterday was o great day for the paper
patriots in the House of Representatives.
They saved the country twice First, they
passed their own bill to create an unlimited
quantity of shinplasters and to make money
SO '.cheap" that the poorest man may always
have plenty and then they passed the
Senate bill, which at a stroke adds one
hundred millions to the currency. Ii they
could be sure that the first measure would go
safely through the ordeals it has yet to pass
the enactment of the second might properly
be regarded as q wasteful and ridiculous ex-
cess-a simply superHuous application of
Congressional energy to case already
provided for-since no demand for
paper money can ever arise, even
among the kite merchants and
the trunk liners, that the first bill will not
amply supply But, as it is q villanously un-
certain world, there is no knowing what may
happen to this first beautiful law, and the
patriots wisely decided not to neglect even
such tride "a ninety millions, evidently adj
miring the principles of the thrifty gentle
man who, if Mr.. Van Buren, would not make
him foreign Minister, was willing to accept
pair Of old pantaloons.
With the Senate bill, which has now also
passed the House, the public is sufficiently
familiar it adds forty -four millions OF legal
tender and forty-six millions of national bank
notes to the volume of the currency. But the
House bill for free banking viii be properly
described by the statement that the other is,
by comparison, mere drop in the bucket. 1t
repeats every limitation Of the act Of June 3,
1864, and of amendments to that act.
Under the original act there was no limitation
to the banking capital that might be aggre-
gated in the vast machinery there provided
for; but there was q restriction in the sum OF
| the circulation it permitted That law recog-
nized that the plundering of the people by
financial corporations was most oppressive
when done by means of the circulation Of
worthless scraps OF paper Depositors have
some option; but the people are bound hand
and foot and given into the possession of
organized brigands when the law allows
corporation to issue paper without any limi-
tation as to quantity. But the wise men now
in Congress Judge that limitation imposed
only to protect the people, and which did
protect them, and without which they are
helpless in the hands Of class that has never
failed to rob them when it had the opportu-
nity-such limitation Congress judges foolish
and unnecessary, and SO grasses it from the law.
With the repeal OF the limitation to the
sum OF the national bank circulation what
restriction is left? There are two points in
the law that will operate restrictions. One
of these is the provision strangely left stand
ing) which fixes the relation of the circulation
to be issued with bonds deposited BY this
point the circulation is limited to sum
within the figure of the national debt. With
the national debt at two thousand millions of
dollars say, the circulation Of national banks,
under the new law, would be limited to one
thousand eight hundred millions of dollars.
But this could be repealed by future Con-
gress, and then the only limitation would be
the clause in the present bill by which banks
are required to keep with the Secretary, in
legal tender, for redemption of their notes,
five per cent Of their circulation. With
the greenbacks limited to four hun
bred millions the national banks could
then only issue eight thousand mill
ions of dollars With this latter sum in
circulation nobody would be without money.
We should be the richest people in the world
in that per capita proportion which Congress-
men SO love to contemplate, and the happiest
people in the world in the distribution of
these pretty promises to pay. Dollar bills
would be two for cent at least, and with
money as cheap as that there could be no
excuse for anybody being without it. But we
blush to confess that even with this quantity
of money afoat we should still be poorer than
the French people once were; for this would
only give us about two hundred dollars for
every person of the population; while in the
good old times in France, as we have recently
shown in these columns, assignats enough
were issued to give the people sum per head
of at least three hundred dollars. Congress-
men ought to take care of our fame in this
respect.
And this is free banking exceedingly free,
no doubt. Advanced economists in Europe
of the present day, as we'll as in this country,
have argued cogently for free banking, but
we believe no thoroughly sane man ever be-
lieved in it as separated from the only posi-
BILE practical limitation which is the power to
convert every note into coin at the option of
the holder. Free banking apart from that
limitation is theft 1t is impossible to give to
the people any other security but the power to
convert the notes into coin at will With
specie payments the more banks there are the
better at least we have never yet seen any
indication of a good limit to their usefulness
With that limitation the capital embarked in
banking, like capital in other enterprises, regu-
lates its own operations and if there are too
many banks the shareholders only are the