The Russellville Democrat., 1875-04-22
Depressing Effect on Business.
An Inflated Currency not the
 Remedy.
Industry and Economy, the Payment of Debts and the Accumulation of Mer-
 chantable property,
 Our Only Relief.
Bank Note Circulation at the
 West and South.

of property and depression of business which followed it, there came a clamor from the Western and Southern States for more pa per money. According to host of speakers and writers, who as sumed to represent that portion of the country, all that was needed to restore its former prosperity was an increase of the national circulating medium. Only create an abundance of greenbacks or national bank notes and commerce and industry would revive as the parched herbage of the field re- wives under the benign influence of the summer shower. Let the Government printing presses go to,!work and send out their life giving streams, and the desert, would blossom as the rose, the si- lent factories would hum again, theidlc shop-keeper would become busy, and the poor sfarmer could sell his wheat and corn at a price which would make spectators in prairie lands rejoice like Wall street bull when he has got the bears in a tight place. It was in vain to reply to their eloquence, that the evil lay too deep to be reached by so superficial Il rcme- dy, that no hocus pocus could make q poor and indebted people rich, nor could legislation transfer wealth from one quarter of the country to another. The clamor of the intlationists prevail ed, and in June, 1874, Congress passed an act giving the Western and Southern States the privilege of increasing their national bank note circulation by the sum of $5o- OOO,OOO.
 That law has now been in oper- ation more than nine months, and with what result a recent report of the Comptroller of the currency shows. Instead of availing them selves of the fercely demanded opportunity of augmentlng their bank note circulation, the Western and Sounthern states have voluntarily given up over $lO, ,SO0,000 of what they had. In other words, when the matter was put to the proof, it was found that those States, instead of being de- 
 prived of the circulation to which they were legitimately entitled by their resources, actually had $lO,- SOO,O00 more than they could keep. The banks of Illinois sur rendered $3,030,000, or nearly one third of the who'e amount and it is worthy of remark that it was the representatives of this state who made the greatest out cry about the injustice with which their constituents were treated.
 Following out the same policy of permitting an unlimited eN- pansion of national bank notes, another act was passed last Janu- ary, removing all restrictions up on the number of national banks, and the amount of their circula- tion. The practical result has been that nearly all the new banks formed under this act have been in the Eastern and Middle States, and the call for increased circula- tior has come from the same quarter. For instance, during March these States added to their bank capital $l ,460,00o, and to their circulation $Sl9, ,000, while for the Western and Southern States the amounts were only $3l0,000 of new capital, and $9O,- 900 of new circulation.
 It is seldom that the abstract laws of finance receive such Il striking exempliiication as nas been furnished in this case, Dur ing the whole of the controversy over the national currency, TIE
 SUN, in common with all journals
 edited by men of sound financial