The Ottawa free trader., 1874-03-07
DOES THE WEST NEED MORE CURRENCYs

A large number of people IN the west who
have been indulging in wild speculatlons and
are in debt, would like to see the currency SO
inflated that they could sell out at double figurs
and pay their debts with currency worth so
cents on the dollar; but men who prefer to do
an honest, legitimate, safe and steady busi.
ness want sound currency and dread infa
ton. This is the whole case in a nut shell.
The western farmers, though some Of them
may be in debt, are engaged in no wild spec.
ulations, and can only be injured by infla.
tion. Their case is exactly stated in the re
cent great speech of Senator Shurz:
The economic interest of the West is main
ly agricultural. The western people are, by
overwhelming preponderanCe, u farming po-
pulatiOn. Their whole prosperity depends
upon the successful and profitable cultivation
of the soil. If il is true that the farmer for
all the neccssaries he had to buy, had to pay
prices blown up by Our irredeemable and re
dundant currency, even far beyond the point
to which the tariff alone would have driven
them, while the prices of almost all the sta
pies he had to sell were regulated by foreign
market untouched by home imitation, govern
ed by specie measure of value, and exposed
to the free competition of the world-if that
is true and trust nobody will deny it, must
it not be equally true that the farming inter
est, and through it the whole western country,
will not only be injured, but be vastly bene-
fitted by resumption of specie payments,
which will greatly reduce the prices at which
the farmer has to buy his neCessaries, while
not reducing but greatly increasing the pur-
chasing power OF the crops he produces and
has to sell And will not this immense ad.
vantage in fact vastly Ovcrbalance any posi-
BILE amount of loss which might be suffered
in consequence OF temporary Indebtedness,
and which by prudent management may be
made very small.
hear it said that there are great many
farmers whose farms are covered with mort.
cages, and who would be greatly injured by
specie resumption, in as much as the money
in which they would have to pay off the mort
cages would be Of higher value than the mon
ey in which they contracted the debt. But
how can they expect to pay their mortgages
unless they derive the necessary profit from
their farms? And how can they derive that
profit from their farms if they continue to Ia
Dor under the same disadvantages, having to
buy at high prices and to sell at prices that
are low? Moreover, what will be the conse-
quence if we initiate the currency still more?
viii not by the operation Of the same laws,
the farming business De Sllll more depressed:
Will not, in consequence ofthe still aggravat.
ed disadvantage of buying at high and sell
ing at low prices, the mortgages accumulate
upon their farms in worse degree than here
toiore, and when, then, the day of settlement
comes, will not their dischage be more diff
cult than ever? | insist, therefore, that the
agricultural interest, and with it the whole
west, and the SOUTH too, which were never
benefited, but always injured by initiation
and will be still more grievously injured BY
further initiation, it acW not IN 0ny aoay be in
Ijured, bu in erery respect be castlV benefited bs
return ct'specie payment, and if stood upor
this floor not as the advocate of the interest
of the whole country, but as mere advocat
of western interests, | would advocate speci
payments with no less zeal than | am nov
Iii