Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1875-03-11
SENATOR RAG.LAND's BILL.

IOthe Union and American
1 have read with pleasure your arti-
cles in favor of State Bank. 1 agree
with you fully IN ali the points you
have taken, and 1 believe the people do |
also. But it appears that the Legisla-
ture do not intend ID take any steps |
which Will bring us relief in that way
in any reasonable time. Then the only |
wise policy is to do ;he nextbest thing. |
What is that? l have read with care
and studied as well as l am able the
various financial bills pending in the
Senate and in the House, and / am
thoroughly convinced that the bill
which combines most points calculated
to relieve the people and at the
same time sustain the credit and
good faith of the State is that
introduced by Senator Ragland, and
now on its third reading in the Senate.
Its principal features are: 1t directs
the Insurance of Comptroler's warrants
IN the manner prescribed in the last
Comptroller's report, to the extent of
two and a half million dollars. 1t
authorizes the conversion Of the bonds
of the State, funding or registered,
with their coupons attached, into these
warrants dollar for dollar. This Is
voluntary and not compulsory on the
owner Of the bonds. Whenever any Of
the warrants thus issued are paid
into the treasury, they are to
be cancelled and then there
may be another conversion of the inter
est bearing bonds into the non-interest-
ing bearing warrants until there are
again two millions and half dollars of
the warrants issued, or IN circulation,
if you please. Now, what are the ad-
vantagesof thisproposition, if adopted?
If Comptrollers' warrants, receivable
for taxes and all other dues to the
State, as these are, viii pass as curren-
cy, then it adds that much to our State
circulation. If it is acceptable to our
bondholders they win accept it and
thus it goes towards sustaining our
credit and decreasing our interest bear
ing Indebtedness. By a calculation
which Ihave seen made by an expert bank
accountant the payment Of S2,5OO,OOO
in this way annually would pay our
current expenses and extinguish our
bond debt IN less than eighteen years.
If more than s., 100000 were converted
annually the debt would be extinguish-
ed that much earlier.
By making the conversion of the
bonds into warrants voluntary, there
never can be such an eflux or issue of
the warrants, as to render them paper
trash. For when they get below a Ger
tain value the bond-hclder Will cease to
convert his bonds into warrants, until
a sufficient number of them have been
taken up to again increase their value,
and thus produce a further conversion
Of the interest bearing bonds into the
on.interest bearing warrants. THIS
exchange Of bonds Is proposed to be
made not only voluntary, but dollar for
dollar, so that we cannot be charged
with violating faith by force measures
nor by shaving our own paper.
One value which these warrants
would have, IN addition to their value
for paying taxes and for circulation as
currency, is that they could be used as
cOllaterals IN the borrowing of United
States currency. For instance, l have
real estate which is worth $4,000; /
yet I cannot sell it for one-half its
value, andI cannot borrow money upon /
it at all. I need money In my mer-
camille, manufacturing, mining or ag-
ricultural business, and would gladly /
sell this property for Comptroller's |
warrants at eighty cents on the dollar.
l can take these warrants and use them |
as collaterals upon which can borrow
money to carry on my business. Iwould
rather have a currency deprecated |
twenty-five per cent, which l can use
promptly, than to have my property
deprecated thirty-tbree per cent. for |
the lack Of currency, and which l can
not use even at that deprecated rate
for any commercial purpose.
Another advantage Of the bill is that |
by directing the issuance Of COmptrol- |
ler's warrants It gets rid Of all consti-
tutional questions about bills of credit |
and the Ike, for we have been issuing |
our COmptrOller's warrants and T, ceiv- |
ing them for taxes since the formation |
of the State. They have none of the !
clemens of a bill of credit and yet |
may answer all the purposes Of cur
rency. 1 sincerely hope that our Leg
islators may at least give US this meas
ure Of relief. Elk.