The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1874-10-03
Contraction the Road to Expansion.


The leading-at any rate the most i'm
portant-question before the country to day
is the financial question. The President
was unfortunate in the course he chose, in
reference to having no policy except the
will of the country as reflected by Con-
gress, at the beginning of his second term.
Congress proved to have no we'll defined
views on the question of finance; in fact
that body developed one truth to the some
what astonished country, which was that
its knowledge of any question or questions
in political economy, was about as limited
as it was possible to conceive any body of
men that could be called together, could
possess. Had the President been as def
mite in stating his views on the policy of
resuming specie payment, and his opposi-
ton to initiation, in his first annual mes
sage, as he was compelled to be in his veto
message to the initiation bill, a quite differ
ent state of affairs would have been mani
tested during the last session. 1t is matter
of surprise what large number of men
there are who manage to get to Congress,
have no definite idea of political questions,
and if the President, who is of their party
has policy, they are prone to fall in with it
at once. Not having been committed to any
particular policy, they feel free to espouse
the side of the questions which places them
in harmony with the administration. The
grand .fasco of Congress on the initiation
measures of the last session might have
been prevented, had the President set forth
his views in his annual message, on tho
question of returning to specie payments,
as clearly as he was compelled to do in his
veto message.
1t is matter for surprise that so many
men who have regulations for ability as
sound thinkers, could wander in such
daze, as the country and the world were
witnesses to during the last session of Con-
gress. The great abyss which had separ-
ated our paper money from gold had be-
come contracted from forty or fifty per
cent in three or four years, to the compare
lively narrow margin Of nine or ten per
cent in favor of gold, and without creating
1.-THE of the distress which the imitation
lists deafened the country predicting would
be the result, if specie payment was reached
by little moro contraction. In our view,
our present irredeemable paper money Cir
culation is the worst conceivable contrac-
ton that is possible. While it serves to
control prices and retard trade by its uncer-
tain and tuctuating value, it effectually
shuts out the money of the world, gold and
silver, from becoming any part of the Cir
culating medium of our country. If it
were not for this fictitious barrier when an
addition to our circulation was required to
bring forward the crops, or effect any other
movement in trade, the money Of the world
being on par, or level, we will say, for
the better calculation of the subject, it
would flow into this country from abroad
to supply that immediate demand, as water
or air tends to vacuum in their respective
elements. In place of being confined to
few hundred millions of circulating medium
of peculiar type, differing from all other
moneys of the world in value as in charac-
medium of the commercial world to supply
our temporary wants, which is the true and
only kind of "elasticity "a favorite term
i'll the mouths Of inflationists-that is at
all practicable or possible.
Through seeming heterodox, the only
practicable and safe road to true, honest
initiation, is by contraction. When we con-
tract the value of our paper money, Or hoard
gold sufficient to redeem in specie on de-
mand the present amount of outstanding
paper money, we will have the entire circu-
lating volume of the worlds money from
which to supply our temporary wants, and
the same reservoir will absorb our surplus
money which accumulates at any time in
excess of the requirements of trade. When
the money of the world is Of one denomi-
nation, which is gold, or that which is con-
vertible into gold on demand, then it will
flow in to supply demand where ever
felt, from the one great circulating medium.
Our present irredeemable paper money is
a fiction that is forever cheating us and
shutting US out from the great money
supplies of the commercial world. Let
US have Congress which will earnestly
address itself to gathering gold sufficient
to redeem every paper dollar in circulation
in place of allowing the Secretary of the
Treasury to carry every available gold
dollar into Wall street, and make the
Government speculator among the bulls
and bears of that paradise of gamblers.
Every dollar made in those weekly gold
speculations, is made off of the people,
and every one lost in these transactions
is drawn from the pockets of the people.
The only legitimate use that the Treasury
can make of its surplus gold, is to redeem
its promises to pay, which are in the peck
cts of the people.
A Law to Protect the Birds.
We publish this week very important