The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-04-03
GOLD PRICES.

NEW ORLEANS BULLET
GOLD PRICES.
From present appearances it seems as
; bankers, merchants and business men in al
{ branches will soon be obliged, in self.defepse
| to adopt metallic measure of values. TIL
3 paper representative of money is too variable
to answer the purpose. No buyer can tell hoy
t much an article bought on thirty days time
at paper prices. is going to cost. A purchas
r on the first of April may cost the buyer
, hundred and sixteen dollars before the first o
, May.
A dealer may buy lot Of sugars at Ger
! tain price in currency, and sell them in {
month at the same price, and yet be loser o
four or five cents in dollar. A careful heai
Of family puts in bank five hundred dollars
in gold and as much more in currency for the
purchase Of some ground or stock. Ninety
days afterwards he finds that his gold has
precisely the same purchasing power that il
had on the day of deposit, but he discovers
that his paper will not buy as much by
twenty-five or thirty dollars as it would have
bought when deposited. The exchangeable
value of paper varies under many influences,
and is never stable from one day to another.
It is no more fit to measure and adjust prop
] erty values than ri ,bon Of gum elastic would
be to measure city lots.
Such medium of exchange obliges dealers
to alter their prices daily aud to charge
enough to give q margin for depreciation in
paper. The manufacturer charges enough
for his wares to cover q probable decline in
paper even when he sells for ready pay. If
he sells on time he makes still greater allow
ance for Auctuation. His purchaser adds his
margin in the same way. and so does the job
lowance for change in the paper to be received
is in each case five per cent, the last buyer and
consumer is loser by fifteen per cent
tribute to an elastic and always variable
medium and measure of exchange Had the
wares in question been bought and sold at
gold prices only. all this allowance would
have been saved.
Uncertainty is the atmosphere in which
spectators thrive All this handling of
paper and gold for profit by bankers and
All these fluctuations in currency put money
in the pockets Of the sagacious money
changers, who reap where they have no. sown
and who gather where they have rot strewn.
Within the past twelve years the specializing
classes have heaped up gigantic fortunes ag-
gregating thousands Of millions Of dollars
merely by buying paper money at
one price and selling it at another,
or by gambling on its rise and fall,
or by taking advantage Of fluctuations which
they themselves have caused. Without
adding at all to the produced wealth or pro.
ductive ability of the country, they get pos
session of enormous sums Of money, the repre-
sentative of labor done. This clearly would
have been impossible if we had used none but
q metallic currency of unvarying value and
purchasing power, or currency at all times
and places convertible into gold at par.
But the paper money is in the country,
we are told; sit forms tie medium of ex-
change; We can not replace it with gold or a
convertible currency without long delay; both
the great political parties, on the eve Of ire
mendous struggle are unwilling to commit
themselves to policy of.prompt and compul-
sorry resumption; spectators are opposed tot
Then we are asked how to get over, or around,
Or through the difficulty. and how to prevent
the cheaper currency from driving out the
dearer and scarcer, because safer and more
precious, coined gold?
We do not propose to attempt an answer,
but merely to present method (and that not |
at all new. by which part Of the uncertainty |
in business may be avoided. Let gold be re-
stored to its inalienable and indefeasible pre-
rogative as the never varying standard of
measurement in all monetary transactions |
Let cost be calculated, profits be assessed and |
prices fixed in gold on all property, produce,
and merchandise whenever practi-
cable Then on whatever day q sale is made,
the seller will receive if not gold, exactly cur
rency enough to make up his price in gold.
Paper would still be used for buying. but the
uncertainty and variability would be trans
ferred from the price of the thing
bought to the price of paper money from day
to day, which is fact always, and in all cities
notorious and public, and therefore easy to
be learned. BY degrees an adhesion to gold
prices would induce prudent and sagacious
people to PIT their paper into gold, and re-
serve it in that form for current wants. Those
who should deal at strictly gold prices. freed
from the necessity of allowance for fuctua-
lions in paper. could afford to sell, especially
if on time, several points lower than sellers
IT paper prices.
What effect immediate or remote, the
general adoption Of gold prices might have
'n the dealings in paper, whether it would
stimulate speculation or. as we think proba-
Die, prevent extremes in the rise and fall of the
gold prices Of currency, We need not consider