New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-09-28

covered by employing which one hundred
bushels of wheat to the acre could be obtained
with the same labor now bestowed on twenty,
the value of wheat would fall. The permanent,
or natural, or average value of gold, or OIL
any article which can be produced freely
varies with the quantity of labor required 10
produce it.
III. The greenback is not an article when
can be produced freely at the expense OF
given quantity of labor. Its value is sustained
solely by the circumstance that the Govern
ment has a complete monopoly of the supply.
Let the Government issue fifty, or one humid
red. or two hundred millions of new green
backs and their value wOuld sink in proper
ton. In France. in the Confederate States, IN
the old colonies, in Texas, and in short every
where where the experiment has been tried, It
has been found that increasing the quantity OF
paper money lessons its value. The value OF
gold cannot be lessened in the same way. be-
cause any considerable depreciation would
take away all the profits of those engaged IN
mining it, The finest kinds of diamonds can
not be increased in quantity to an unlimited ex-
tent by any effort of human labor. Hence
they have a monopoly value. Could some
chemical process of making them be discov-
cred, their value would soon sink to corre-
spondence with the cost of production. And
So if greenbacks could be issued in quantities
sufficient to enable every unfortunate to pay
his debts, their value, to use an expression OF
Cobbett's, would at last not be sufficient to
enable one of the creditor class Ito buy
toothpick to make believe he had been to
"dinner."
Mr.. Brndle does not explain what his table
of the expansions and contractions OF the
paper currency is intended to show. We have
two observations to make In regard to 1t. Its
compiler must. in the first place, be aware OF
the fact that the cOntractions of 1860, 1887
43. 1878, and 1862, folloued and were the
effects of the commercial crises at the begin
ming of those periods. The speculative bubbles
which burst on those occasions were the re-
suits of expanding the loans and circulation
of banks in accordance with the demands OF
"the business interests of the country" The
banks in those years regulated their issues by
the claws of trade" and not by strength OF
the materials of which their several boilers
were constructed. Consequently there was an
explosion just at the moment when the busl-
ness interests conceived themselves to be
most fourishng. In the second place. MIR.
Brindle should know that compound interest
notes, certificates Of Indebtedness bearing
interest and three year Treasury notes, are
not currency, and Were made to bear interest
in order that they might not circulate as cur
rency. A security which does not make
purchase or a payment once in three months,
and is-all the while earning interest, is no
more entitled to the name of money than tho
five per cent bonds of the Funded loan.
With these deductions from the circulating
medium" the pretended contraction Of the
currency between 1865 and 1873 vanishes into
thin air. On the other hand the expansion
from S4S7 100000 to $0H,0O0,0O0 of the loans
of the National banks during that interval is
circumstance which may have had something
to do with the panic, attended as it was with
a reduction of the cash reserve from $780,
100000 to $1l3OOO,OOO.
Mr.. Brinde's definitions and ideas of money
are suited to the purposes of an absolute
monarch, like Louis XIV, who wishes to rob
the creditors of the State by debasing the
coin, but they have long been spurned by
every honest government. For the rest of his
letter. may we remind him that banks of issue
have done less mischief than Governments of
issue, of which he appears as the champion Z
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1t is not often that the results of a laundering