The Russellville Democrat., 1875-10-21

ion dollars (s6oo, ,ooo, ,ooo) current

lion dollars $500, 900, ,000) current money of the realm--incluaing both bank bills and spec;e-they have created circulating medium nine times as large ($5,300,OO0,- 000) by means of drafts, notes, and biii.s of every description. Commencing on which, Henry Carey Baird says:
 Nevertheless, this system of credit which has grown out of persistent, long-continued, and vicious legislation in regard to money, is top-heavy and essen tially unsound and dangerous, and liable to tumble over at any and at all times. During the great war of the rebellion, through our ample supply of currency and our great business activity, we were enabled to carry almost our entire government indebtedness; and it was not until peace came, and with it contraction of that currency, that it became necessa- " to seek foreign aid."
 It is conceded on all hands that there is not on the surface of the globe enough specie to carry on one per cent. of she worlds indus tries if all balances had to be paid in bullion. From this reason alone. apaft from every other con sideration, credit is inevitable; and the whole question narrows to Q point when we ask: Whose credit? Financial collapses and panics are invariable the fruit of vicious credit and wild specula- tion, and are always liable to occur in any land not furnished with sufficient sound currency to do cash trade. The plain reme- dy is to substitute a credit of the nation for the credit of individu- als and private corporations. In the words of Mir. Baird, "better " far, instead of giving unlimited expansion to an expensive and " unstable bank-credit system, to " expand the legal tender curren- "cy, and thereby increase the power and the disposition of the [" people to buy cash, and thus give real stability to the busi ness of the country"
 Of course, the advocates of the specie resumption scheme will meet this suggestion with the usual shibboleth regarding ''equiv- alents" and standard values" Without following them further through such mazes, we say that any convenient, portable, readily diffusable medium of exchange in which the people have perfect confidence, is ipso facto fitted to discharge the functions of money. And in what could the people of the Unite States place more i'm plicit trust than in currency, not alone based on the credit of the nation itself, but absolutely secur ed by mortgage on the nations entire property? Such circulat- ing medium could not fall to be jealously guarded and sustained, for the entire people would have vital interest in preserving it, "Ah! but"-somebody will chime in-"your rag-money will not be received in London" That is no means certain, yet we would not feel depressed by any means if it were NOT taken in London. We conclude with an extract touching this point from a distinguished Canadian authority, Hon. Isaac Buchanan, who says;
 "Money should be thing of, or belonging to, country, not of or belonging to the world. '. An exportable commodity is not fitted to be money, and nothing could be more monstrous than England's principle-followed by the United States up to the war her legislation forcing her people to be buyers of gold, and making their possession of gold (one of the scarcest articles in the world ] the condition of their being able to furnich themselves with food and clothing"
 Yet this same monstrons prin- ciple is precisely what the specu- lators, stockholders, and English school want to perpetrate in the