The New York herald., 1874-12-24
Coquetting with Specie Payments.

hO nAUSccA VI - So1ASsS~p "N~S~--S~ -
or female, has never been considered quite re-
spectacle. 1t is infected with taint OF
frivolity, insincerity, and, when its deceptive
advances are taken in simple, confding
earnest, Of heartless cruelty. 1t is the char
acter of coquettes to go as far az they can IN
love-making without committing themselves,
OF if committed, they try to escape by
putting off the nuptials to hopelessly
distant day. The Senate Finance bill is piece
of arrant coquetry, in which party politics
make deceitful advances to sound finance.
The marriage of our paper currency to coined
money is to be postponed for four years. sub
ject to oil the slips and accidents which may
intervene in that long period. It has passed
into a proverb that long engagements seldom
turn out well They are almost certain to
end in disappointment if the courtship has
commenced with other motives than sin
cere affection and with view to
some other object than an indissolu-
BILE union, and If the intermediate
period is not to be devoted to acquiring the
means to maintain household. There is
nothing in the Finance bill which has been
rushed through the Senate under the whip
and spur of party discipline that tends to
make resumption easier four years hence than
it would be to-day. Instead of contracting
the paper currency this BILL so 6ar as it has
any operation, will inevitably expand it 1t
proposes to retire eighty-two million dollars of
greenbacks by process which will add one
hundred and two million five hundred thou
sand dollars to the bank circulation. The
difficulty of resumption will be increased, be-
cause there will be larger amount of paper
currency to be redeemed than there is at pres
ent To begin specie payments with addi-
tional expansion would bring sudden and
ruinous collapse of business and general
financial wreck. At the session of Congress
Immediately preceding the date fixed for re-
sumption this act would be repealed and the
last condition of the country would be worse
than the first. The nuptials between paper
and coin would be broken off in consequence
Of utter inability to support such union.
The only valid reason for postponng specie
payments is the necessit such preparation
as will meanwhile gra....4iy and steadily
OlIQlulSu lu6 OlucIcnCc III Nuluc gDcIWccu
paper and coin. The expansion which this bill
must produce would increase that difference
and make the shock presumption more vio-
lent It would be very unwise to attempt imme-
diate resumption; but immediate resumption
would be much easier than resumption in 1879,
if the paper currency is to be constantly ex-
panded during the intervening period, as this
bill proposes. It is impossible to resume until
the paper currency is at par with gold. An
offer to pay specie when there was difference
in their value would simply result in run
upon the Treasury or the banks, which would
continue until the volume of paper was suf-
iciently reduced to bring it to par. If specie
payments were proclaimed tomorrow
there would be an immediate and
prodigious exchange of paper for gold,
which could not be arrested until either the
whole stock of gold was exhausted or the
contraction of the paper circulation made its
value equal to coin. The violence Of the
shock would be in proportion to the degree of
expansion, and if the volume OF paper is to
be larger in 1873 than it is at present resump-
ton would have more convulsive and prog
trating effect then than it would now. This
waste of argument to undertake to prove it.
As the main effect of the Senate bill will be
to increase the volume Of paper its practical
tendency is to render the resumption Of
specie payments more difficult and hopeless
The haste with which this measure has been
delberation and debate, without waiting to
collect the sense Of the country and without
listening to any proposals for its amendment,
admits of an easy explanation. It's purpose is
not fnan cial, but political. It was passed to
meet party exigency. and not to establish q
sound monetary system. 1t had its birth in q
caucus of politicians, not in o conference of
fnanciers. The inhationists in that caucus
presented their ultimatum and compelled sub
mission to it No amendments we're permitted
after the introduction of the bill in the Sem
ate, because that would have broken the po-
iticl bargain agreed on in the caucus and
have subverted the party unity, which is the
main purpose of the bill. Even an amend
ment declaring that the retired greenbacks
should be destroyed and not again put in cir
culation was voted down by the majority, who
had bound themselves in caucus to the strict
letter of the bill Had that amendment been
entertained the infationists would have bolted
and the whole scheme have fallen in ruins
The infationists maintain the liberty of reis-
suing the retired greenbacks. There is no
other pOssible reason Why thew object
to an amendment requiring their destruc-
ton. So, besides issuing five dollars Of
bank notes for every four dollars of greenbacks
withdrawn, the infationist supporters OF this
precious bill require that the government
shall be vt liberty to reissue every dollar Of
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