Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1875-10-15

as three dollars twenty cents OF the same
paper would have purchased the day be-
fore.
Mr.. Phillips, in support Of his reply to
Mr. Carl Sohurz 8 statement that "there never
was State ever 50 well administered. there
never was people ever. 20 frugal, there
never wss government ever 20 careful ,
which did not by the emission Of large guam
titles Of irredeemable paper money run in the
vortex of proAigacy and corruption" says :;
Did Mr.. Schurz never hear of a country
called Great Britain, which used irredeem-
able paper money from 1877 till 1921 ~
And Mr.. Phillips goes on to urge that with.
out redeemable paper money England could
not have conquered Napoleon that paper
notes fought the battle OF Waterloo, kept
her workingmen employed, gave them ease
under almost incredible taxes, and secured
to trade unexampled 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 actual payments that
the paper WAS not declared irredeemable, but
was always accompanied with promise to
redeem it, which, though long delayed, was
at last carried out that the resumption Of
specie payments was forced in England by
the consciousness of the huge evil of de-
preciated paper currency. The "unexam-
pied prosperity" referred to by Mr.. Phillips
is little startling to me. In the first twenty
years Of the present centnry the poverty and
misery of cur artisan classes in England was
SO marked that in song Shelley wrote
What is freedo,nt Ye can tell
That which slavery Is. to- well
Ror its very name hath grown
To he the echo OF your own.
IT'S 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
no that ye for them are made.
Loom ana plough and hoe and spade.
WITH our withog. sur own Will bent
To their defense and nourishment"
Between 1900 and 1921 we had bread
riots plentiful in London Glasgow, Manches-
ter and Exeter. In 1916 meeting of the
starving near Manchester ended in the Pc
terloo 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 manufactures increased in pro-
portion a. we were freed from the paper in
solyency which hindered our real business.
1t is perfectly true that the reckless trades
man who signs his name on stamped promises
to pay often, temporarily obtains possession
of cash or goods he would not otherwise get,
but the attainment Of these is surely no evil
dence Of soand and permanent prosperity.
This currency question is not an Ameri-
can question or an English question it is
peoples question, and | write that the
wage may be certain, and that trade may
not be a gamble as to probable difference
between The value of the gold in which the
article is bought to-day, and that Of the
paper in which it will be paid for some
weeks hence. CHARLES BRADLAuGH.