Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1876-02-03
IN Favor of Resumption. but
Against its Enforcement.

The trite recipe Of Mrs Glass for cooking a
hare began, First catch your hare" The
pretended ha.d money Democrats" who are
trying to make specie payments without con-
4 traction by mere accumulation of pile of
! gold, propose a similar recipe for the treat
nlent of the monetary question. ''First get
| the gold" After we have gold enough to
maintain specie payments, they fancy tina; the
rest will 5e easy.
Therein they are mistaken, of course. Ev-
cry student of finance knows that the mere
accumulation of idle coin in Treasury vaults
has no power to change the purchasing power
of legal-tender notes. As long as legal tenders
are at discount, their purchasing power be-
ing less than that of currency, no hoard of
gold which it is possible to procure will suffice
to make specie payments feasible. Let us
suppose, for example, that the volume of cur
rency is so far in excess of the actual require
ments of the country that prices in this coun-
try, measured in currency, are ten per cent.
in gold. The Treassry may have hoard of
two hundred millions, and yet what can it do !?
If it commences paymento of legal-tender notes
in coin, that is contraction, with all its most
dreaded features. Gold paid ont will not flow
into circulation, but will fly froua the country,
or he boarded by those who believe that re-
sumption will prove impracticable; the vol
ume of currency in use will be rapidly re-
duced, and credits based upon that volume
Of currency viii shrink proportionately and
then will result aae of two things, either an
utter failure of the effort to resume, as Great
Britain failed when it first attempted specie
payments after the long suspension half cen
tury ago, or that same sudden, forced, and
violent disturbance of all values and prices
which the opponents of contraction now pic
ture as so full of disaster. II we cannot bear
the ills of contraction now, what chance is
there that we shall be willing or able to bear
the greater ills of resumption at future
time? Yet the gold cannot be paid out for
greenbacks without formal order Of Congress.
No bill as yet proposed by ''hard-money Dem
'ocrsts" provides for the payment of gold for
comes, when the Treasury has an enormous
hoard of gold, and the Secretary of the Treas
ury proposes to pay out gold and take in
greenbacks, will not the howl against contrac-
ton be as loud as it is now? Will not the
very men who now propose this means of
dodging present contraction be equally hostile
TO withdrawal of currency then, with all the
Inevitable consequent reduction in prices and
values?
If SO, what follows? Only that this coun-
try will never resume specie payments until
the people are prepared to make the sacrifices
necessarily incident to resumption. The Dem
ocratic policy is fraud. 1t postpones indefi-
nitey the day of resumption, but does moth
any degree make resumption the more easy at
any future time 1t will be said, we know,
that pile of gold, iflarge enough, would cause
public confidence in the ability Of the United
.States to resume. Very true, but the ability
/ is not now in question; it is the will. If the
country is not willing now to make the sacri-
fee. and to meet the loss of values incident TO
resumption, will it ever be more ready?
1t has always been thought a chief objection
to the recipe of the good Mrs. Glass that it
! contemplated no method of catching the hare.
The Democratic recipe for financial difficulties
ia open to the same sort of objection it pro.
vides no means for getting the gold. Secretary
B,istow has shown that it is very doubtful
whether, with all the means at the disposal Of
the Government, enough gold can be obtained
and held to make resumption practicable
The Democratic plan does not render it easier
indeed, it would surely make it more diff
cult. Reputation of the solemn pledge to re
sumo in 1879 would not strengthen the credit
of the country. If it is doubtful now, j
would be far more doubtful then, whether tn,
! Treasury could get the gold required. Firs
catch the financial hare, say the Democrats
but they make it immeasurably more Difficult
to catch.
Ii this country means to protect its honor
to restore its industrial prosperity, to redeem
its pledges, it will meet all the sacrifice in
volved in contraction speedily and cheerfully
If not, the task will not be made easier b,
possponing it, nor will the device of ''hard
money Democrats" deceive anybody. Y
Tribune.