The daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1873-1877, 1874-01-29
FINANCIAL Disc ussions in the Senate.

On W ednesday, the 18th inst, the Hon.
Carl Schurz made by far the ablest speech
on the Currency question that has been
heard in the United States Senate for
many year. The following day Mr. Nor
ton, of Indiana, undertook to reply to the
Missouri Senator. He might as well have
undertaken to confute the multiplication
table. Since we have not the space to fol
low Mr.. Schurz through his mastery expo
sitiOn of true principles and unsparing dis
section Of such shams as Mr.. Boutwel's
so-caled financial policy, we will here limit
ourselves to a few observations on a single
point upon which Mr. Morton had succeed
ed in getting himself greatly bewildered
That point is the value of money.
The expression value of money is
used in two entirely distinct senses. 1t
means, iG the first place, what money will
exchange for, or buy. 1t is used also to
signify what rate Of interest money will
lend for. Mr.. Schurz maintained that by
increasing the paper money of this coun-
try, the dollar would be of less value as a
purchasing power; that is to say, prices
would rise so that the wages of labor, though
increased, would support the laborer in no
greater comfort than they did before the
currency was increased. Now il is within
every grown persons experience that the
great increase Of currency which has taken
place in this country since 1860 has been
followed by a corresponding increase in the
cost of living, so that on the whole we are
no richer than we were fifteen years ago.
A further initiation of the currency now
will be followed in time by a further rise
of prices, as well as by many disorders and
much injustice to creditors, which we have
not room to notice at present Mr.. Nor
ton knows all this as well as Mr. Schurz
Indeed, in what is intended for irony, the
Indiana Senator says, IF you want to make
pork cheap, so that everybody can buy it,
''have a small pork crop, meaning that
when the pork crop is small, it is absurd to
expect that pork will exchange for little
money So we say, when the greenback
crop is large, greenbacks will exchange for
very little pork. Men are neither clothed,
nor fed, nor housed with greenbacks, but
with the things which greenbacks buy. In
crease your greenbacks and you increase
the price of food, clothing, houses and
lands in short, you decrease the value of
the greenbacks without creating an addi-
tional atom of food, drink, or clothing.
Reverting to the other sense of the ex-
preston, value of money, Mr.. Schurz is en-
tirely right in saying that the increase of
the currency has no permanent effect on
the rate Of interest How will Mr. Morton
explain this fact that in Great Britain
where for thirty years no bank or institu-
ton whatever has had the power to in
fate the currency a single dollar, where
the circulation huctuates precisely as
though paper money did not exist and
gold AMI silver were the only legal tender,
the rate of interest from year to year is
lower than in any other country in the
world using irredeemable paper money
Indeed, Is the greater or less abundance of
tea-cups any reason why he should be
more or less willing to lend his tea-cups for
a certain number Of extra tea-cups to be
returned with them as compensation for
the risk of loss and injury? Not at all
Though every family have tea-cups that
does not make him any the more ready to
lend his. But suppose Congress, in order
to encourage the lending of tea-cups. pass
es law that the borrower may return, in
stead Of the clear, translucent China which
was borrowed, old brown, cracked earthen-
ware, so greatly interior to the original ar
tlcles that no good house keeper would toll
crate the stuff on the table. He might be
tricked once, but never second time, into
lending tea-cups. As the future value of
the dollar grows more and more uncertain,
the time will come when the risk of being
cheated out of more or less of the
principal will form a pretty substantial
part OF the rate per cent which is charged
tor the use of money.
We are well aware that the rate of inter
est IS settled by struggle between the
borrowers and lenders, the usury law to
the contrary notwithstanding, but in the
long run the amount Of money used BY a