The daily gazette., 1875-04-16
THE WORLD MOTES,
BY JOHN @. DREW.

"Unconvinced by ak or gibbet,
lhat all virtue is the past's
TIE South has, in the past month.
Issued q series of well-considered
money articles, from the pen of one
OF our soundest merchants, And now
| find in the Fall River Neacs of March
25th.
"All the financial fog that envelops
this subject has been produced by a
lew foolish errors in our national leg
lslation, that must be apparent to eve
ry thinking man, but which our yene-
rated Congress has failed to correct,
and we sadly fear will persist in fail.
ing to remedy.
The first and most stupid bIunder,
and one at which future generations
will laugh, and point to the 87th or
3Sth Congress as the embodyment of
childish simplicity for, is the provis-
IONS that greenbacks should be legal
tender, and yet should not be taken
for duties at the Custom House of the
nation. Whenever the national intel.
lect acquires complete conception of
that crowning act of folly, its rever-
ence Tor the gentlemen who matured
plan by which our own national cur.
rency was dishonored by its own cre-
ators, and in consequence of that er-
ror, which still obtains, tee country
has sweat millions on millions of dol.
lars in hign prices for foreign fabrics.
and gold gamb, ers have fieeced the
honest people of the country to their
hearts content, will suffer heavy
and deserved discount. For at the
first, it is well known there was no
pledge to pay the 20s in gold. The
Congress could have got every dollar.
as ii did the 730s, on a currency paw.
menJ basis, and greenbacks taken at
the Custom House would have been a
grand means of saving the country
from its rapid march in making the
few extremel ! rich and the many ex-
tremely poo.
Had the right policy been pursued,
our bonds would have been kept at
home; the only circulating medium
in use would have been the greenback
and scrip, gold, being demonetlzed as
it was by the legal-tender act, would
have become simple merchandise. y
There would have been no talk of re-
suming specie and paper would have
been at par, and the only question for
real discussion would have been the
an ount of currency needed. This
would have been easily settled by a
few years experiment, and the incor-
poration of the policy of exchanging
bo1ds for currency, and vice versa, as
the nation or the government might
need money, would have so simplitied
and fabricated all commercial opera
tions and governmental transactions
that the nation would have escaped
the dreamy platitudes of the last five
Congresses, the unnumbered and flat
speeches, the silly theories, the fool.
ish legislation 70 remedy one mistake
by making dozen more.
II n u
AS it is, the end cannot be foreseen
or foretold. The country founders
along urder staggering weight of
insipid legislation, and probably this
generation must content itself to die
without the sight of the wisdom in our
legislation that could be borrowed from
the French (who made their paper mo-
ney FULL legal tenders.-J. G.. D. and
III P4dCtiSai SiOSeo Aoo ho-
tonished the world.
Look at that nation, just about our
equal in population, famous in art and
arms, but prostrated by a foreign and
then civil war, despoiled of territory
and consequently of revenue; mulcted
in billion dollars in specie to send out
of the country, with untold millions to
pay the war expenses; crushed with
sorrow, disgrace, and disarranged bust
| ness, and almost without staple gov
ernment; and yet within five years from
the period of her lowest estate, she now
holds her head high among the nations,
her credit unimpaired, her industries
unsurpassed; her national debt dimin-
ishing; her paper money virtually at
par with gold, and her position strength
ening every year. And here stands the
United States, with "the best govern
ment the world ever saw" as conscious
brag, and unable to solve the problem of
its finances within ten years from the
close of tho rebellion! Tell it not in
Paris"
With such clear-headed utterances as
the above before us, it is an unpleasant
task tc point out the weaker portions of
the argument; but we do it with tn
kindly sympathy of one who, seeing