The daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1873-1877, 1875-10-15
money run in the vortex of proHigacy and

corruption. 1t has never been. it will
never be otherwise" says, Did Mr.
Schurz never here of a country called
Great Britain, which used irredeemable
paper money from 1897 till 1927" And
Mr.. Phillips goes on to urge that with
out irredeemable paper money England
could not have conquered Napoleon; that
paper notes fought the battle ofWaterloo,
kept her workingmen employed, gave them
ease under almost incredible taxes, and
secured to trade sunexampled prosperity
First, answer that the paper notes"
of England were not accepted as subsidies
by the foreign powers whose arms were
hired by England against Napoleon; that
for each pledged pound-note England
obtained from money lenders so many
shillings less, with which to make her act
ual payments; that the paper was not de-
clared irredeemable, but was always ac-
companied with promise to redeem it,
which, though long delayed, was at last
carried out and that the resumption of
specie payments was forced in England by
the consciousness of the huge evil of de-
preciated paper currency. The ''unex-
ampled prosperity" referred to by Mr..
Phillips is little startling to me- In the
first twenty years of the present century
the poverty and misery of our artisan
classes in England was so marked that in
song Shelley wrote:
What Is freedomg Yecan tell
That which slavery Is too well,
For its very name hath grown
To be the echo OF your own.
TITS to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day,
In your limbs as in q cell,
For the tyrant's use to dwell;
So that we for them are made,
Loom and pillow and hoe and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defiance and nourishment.
Between 1900 and 1921 we had bread
riots plentiful in London, Glasgow, Man
chester, and Exeter. In 1919 a meeting
of the starving near Manchester ended in
the Peterloo massacre, and yet Mr.
Phillips talks of England's ''unexampled
prosperity" at that date. If Mr.. Phillips
will consult Mr., Gladstone, Mr.. Leone
Levi, or Mr.. Dudley Baxter, he will find
that British prosperity in trade and manu-
features increased in proportion as we were
freed from the paper insolvency which
hindered our real business. II is perfect
ly true that the reckless tradesman who
signs his name on stamped promises to
pay often temporarily obtains possession
get, but the obtainment Of these is surely
no evidence of sound and permanent pros.
perity.
| should venture word, too. on the extreme
inaccuracy of Mr.. Phillips reference t
France and Germany, did l not fear t.
intervene on ground which Mr. Schur!
can occnpy far more ably and appropriately
than myself 1t is enough here to refer Mr.
Phillips, so far as Francois concerned, to al
earlier page of her history and to chapter
by NJ. Louis Blanc, headed Les Assignats.
cannot quit this part of the subjec
without appealing to Mr., Phillips to re
member the irretrievable injury he may d.
to democracy throughout the world if ht
once succeeds inmakiDg Americans believ
that printing press on paper can manu-
facture promises to pay, which promises ar
never to be kept and yet that the nation
using the printing press can keep char
acter for honesty among the nations of tn
world.
| Gen. Buffers ability is so great that n
. proposition startles coming from his pen, an
his political vitality so abnormal that ney
! developments are always to be expected
but l take leave to urge that to forbi
workiugmen to withdraw their savings frol
the banks where those savings are dc
posted without at the same time pointin
out to the workman any fashion in whic
those savings can then be employed for til
workman's advantage is either the adviC
of man without thought or the expediel
of desperate politician to raise a stor
which, if it brings him no advantage, ma
at least wreck others as fatally as he ha
already wrecked himself.
This currency question is not an Amer
= can or an English question; it is pc
o Piles question, and | write that the wa
may be certain and that trade may n
II be gamble as to probable difference
f tween the value of the gold in which II
n article is bought to-day and that of t
st paper in which it will be paid for sol
: weeks hence. CHARLES BRADLAUGH.