The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-06-13
The Conference Bfll-InnatiOn for To-
Day and REDEEM ption Cor TO-MorrOw,
OF Any Other Time.

without any specie and the first step that
legislation takes toward preparation for the
great transition from faith to the precious
metals rs standard of value is one that can
scarcely have any other effect than to widen
the chasm that now yawns between them.
1t is only consistent for our financial thinkers
to make law ostensibly to secure one object
that shall inevitably secure quite another
object Even if they intend their plan
honestly, and sincerely believe that their pro-
ject will accomplish the purposes they say it
will accomplishment of this there may be
reasonable doubt-even then it is only con-
sistent and perhaps natural that in their
financial journeyings they should turn up in
Texas after having pretentiously and noisily
set out to go to Maine. This is just IA it
was-if We accept their own version-when, a
short time ago, they set out to initiate the
currency with all their might and perfected a
bill which they subsequently declared would
assuredly contract the currency in some con-
siderable degree
AS result of conference between COM
mittees of the two houses, and of discussion
which has kept in view the veto of the Four
Hundred Million bill, the present bill is made
to contemplate the two important aspects of
the financial problem. 1t does not ignore
resumption and it remembers imitation. But
though it contemplates these two aspects of
the subject its glance is all sunshine for the
one and filled with the stony glare of the
GorgQn for the other. Immediate inha-
ton and remote, contingent, shadowy
resumption, are equally provided for.
By the mere enactment of the bill
imitation to goodly figure at once takes place.
Following behind this as the line OF battle
comes behind the skirmishers, appears the
bristling front of an imitation that runs well
over q hundred millions; but this is SAID to
be contingent. 1t is contingent, but contin-
gent upon q possibility that never fails to
arise. Will banks organize under this bill
Do the infationists believe in their own theo-
ries of ''cheap money!" Is there any reality
in these theories? No doubt they do believe
in them; no doubt there is reality in them;
and therefore the banks will organize under
the bill because it will be process of selling
for dollar what the purchaser will buy again
in little while for eighty cents or less, if in
deed he be not by friendly Legislative hocus-
pocus eventually absolved from the necessity
of purchasing even at that low figure. Upon
the contingency of the organization of banks
under this bill for free banking depends
the possibility of its initiating the currency
altogether to point upwards of one hundred
and sixty millions Of dollars, and this contin-
gency is merely held up as thin fraud by the
friends Of initiation, who hope to put that for
ward as doubt an unlikely event. thing
that may or may not occur which is beyond all
peradventure certain. At the moment when
the banks which may organize under this act
shall put forth their bills these bills will
be worth nearly what national bank bills are
now worth, and the banks will sell them at
that rate to their customers; but as the vol
ume Of bank bills afoat increases these bills
will become cheaper" This, indeed, is the
great virtue claimed for them by the advo-
Gates of initiation. They will get cheaper and
cheaper as million after million is added to
the volume Of circulation, and the banks will
be able eventually to purchase them again
twenty to fifty per cent on their
bargain. It is true that this twenty to fifty
per cent will come out OF the pockets of the
people who will be the holders of these bills
meanwhile; but if people want cheap money
they must take this as one of the incidents of
the advantage. Money, like everything else,
if it grow cheap at all must grow cheap in
g.
twenty beautiful new bank dollars for ton
of his hay finds that in six months later, when,
perhaps, he has to buy hay. he cannot get but
three-quarters Of O ton for the same twenty
handsome paper dollars, he must only con-
graduate himself upon the fact that the pro-
jects of his representatives in Congress have
been splendidly successful, and that money is
that much cheaper
This simple operation of the cheapening Of
money by increase of its quantity is
the most obvious and evident but not the
sole, nor even the richest, premium offered
for banking under the new law-will be sufi-
cient inducement to insure all the imitation to
result from the reduction of greenbacks by
this process to the sum Of three hundred mil
lions. 1t seems, indeed superfuous to argue
that in life 50 grasping as ours men would
not be slow to seize the advantage of an opera
ton SO stupendous as that Of watering" the
circulating medium Of the United States. All
our great railroad corporations operated their
imitation by the addition OF from fifty to
a hundred per cent to their nominal
capital By that means the dollar in
the safe of shareholder was made
worth fifty cents, and a piece of paper in the
hands of the director was also made worth
fifty cents Indeed, the value OF every dollar
was divided between the dollar itself and
piece of paper hitherto without value, and
thn d,roa4nrs roaaruad To Themselves tho