The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-04-11
BANK NOTE CIRCULATION AT THE
WEST AND SOUTH.

Soon after the panic Of 1873 and the shrink.
age Of values Of property and depression OF
business which followed it, there came a
clanaor from the Western and Southern States
fer more paper money. According to q host
of speakers and writer's, who assumed to re-
present 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 green
backs or national bank notes and commerce
and industry would revive as the parched
heritage Of the field revives under
the benign influence Of 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 silent factories
would hum again, the idle shopkeeper would
become busy, and the poor farmer could sell
his wheat and corn at q price which would
make spectators in prairie lands rejoice like
Wall street bull when he has got the bears
in tight place. It was in vain to reply to
their eloquence, that the evil lay too deep to
be reached by SO superficial remedy, that no
! hocus pocus could make poor and Indebted
people rich, nor could legislation transfer
wealth from one quarter of the country to
another The clamor of the infationists pre-
vailed, and in June, 1874, Congress passed an
act giving the Western and Southern States
the privilege of increasing their national bank
mote circulation by the sum of S55, 600, 600.
That law has now been in operation more
than nine months, and with what result re-
cent report Of the Controller Of the Currency
shows Instead of availing themselves of the
fercely demanded opportunity of augment
ing their bank-note circulation, the Western
and Southern States have voluntarily given up
over $40, 3O0, 900 of what they had l.! In other
words, when the matter was put to the proof,
it was found that those States, instead of
being deprived of the circulation to which
they were legitimately entitled by their re-
sources, actually had $40, 100000 more than
they could keep! The banks of Illinois sur
rendered S3,O30,00O, or nearly one-third of
the whole amount, and it is worthy of remark
that it was the Representatives of this State
who made the greatest outcry about the IN
justice with which their constituents were
treated
Following out the same policy Of permitting
an unlimited expansion OF the national bank
notes, another act was passed last January,
removing all restrictions upon the number OF
national banks and the amount of their cir
culation. 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 circulation
has come from the same quarter. For in
stance, during March these States added to
their bank capital 81, AGO, 600, and to their
circulation 1919, OCO, while for the Western
and Southern States the amounts were only
$4,000 Of new capital, and $4,000 Of new
circulation.
It is seldom that the abstract laws of finance
receive such striking exemplification as has
been furnished in this case. During the
whole of the controversy over the national
currency, the Sun, in common with all jour
nails edited by men of sound financial princi-
Piles, has insisted that the dearth Of currency
at the West and South, Of which it did not
dispute the existence, was owing to causes
which no acts of Congress could remove.
Events have justified the assertion and demon
strated that the recuperation Of the business
of that section can be effected only by indus
try aud economy, the payment Of debts and
the accumulation Of merchantable property
~ Y San 4DrI B.