The Brookhaven ledger. (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1875-1883, 1876-08-10

s;ons against everybody else, it is bound
tn finnish oil which the wants of BUSH
ness require. The system should pos
sibly allow the volume of circulating
credits to ebb and flow according to the
eyer-changing wants of business; shoulo
initiate, as closely as possible, the nat
nral laws of trade, which it has super
seded by artificial contrivances.
And in u similar discussion iii my
message of January 4th, 1876, it wa
said that resumption should be effected
by such measures as would keep ire
aggregate amount of the currency self
adjusting during all the process with
out creating ut any time an artificia
scarcity, and without exciting the pub
lie imagination with alarms, which i'm
pair confidence, contract the whole
large machinery of credit, and disturb
the national operations Of business.
MEANS OF RESUMPTION.
Public economies, official retrench.
ment, and wise finance are the means
which the st. Louis Convention indi-
Gates as provision of reserves and re-
demption.
The best esource is a reduction OF
the expenses of the Government below
its income, for that imposes no new
change on the people; if, however, the
illeprovidence and waste which have
conducted us to IL period of falling rev.
enues oblige us to supplement the re-
suits of economies and retrenchments
by some resort to loans, we should not
hesitate; The Government ought not to
speculate on it's own dishonor in order
to save interest ON its broken promises,
which it still compels private dealers to
accept at a fictitious par; the highest
national honor is not only right, but
would prove profitable.
OF the public debt, 1886, 900, 900
bears interest at 6 per cent in gold and
$72, DOC, 900 at 5 per cent i'll gold; the
average interest is 5.58 per cent. A
financial policy which should secrre the
highest credit wisely availed of, ought
generally to obtain q reduction of l per
cent in the interests. On most of the
loans q saving of l per cent on the av~
erage would be ST, 000 900 q year in
gold; that saving regularly invested at
II per cent. would in less than SO years
extinguish the principal. The whole
SIT, 900, 900 of funded debt might be
paid by this saving alone without cost
to the people. The proper time for re-
sumption is the time when wise prepar-
ations shall have ripened into a perfect
ability to accomplish the object with a
certainty and ease hat will inspire con
fideuce and encourage the reviving of
business. The earliest time in which
such a result can be brought about is
the best, wen when the preparations
shall have been matured. The exact
date would have to be chosen with ref
erence to the then existing state of
trade and credit operations in Jul own
country, the course of foreign com
merce and the condition of the ex-
changes with other nations.
The specific measures and the actual
date are matters of detail having refer
ence to ever-changing conditions. They
belong to the domain of practical adj
ministrative craftsmanship. The Gaps
tain of o steamer about starting from
New York to Liverpool does not assem-
bic n council over his ocean chart and
fix an angle by which to lash the rud-
der for the whole voyage; a human in>
telligence must be at the helm to dis
Germ the shifting forces of the waters
and the winds; . human hand must be
on the helm to feel the elements day by
day end guide to a mastery over them.
PREPARATIONS O RESUMPTION.
Such preparations are everything;
without them q legislative demand fix
ing a day-an official promise fixing a
day-shows they are worse than a snare
and delusion to all who trust them; they
destroy all confidence among thought
full men whose judgement will at last
sway public opinion. An attempt to
set on such n command or euoh a prom
Use without preparation would end i'll a
new suspension. 1t would be a fresh
calamity, prolific of confusion, distrust
and distress. The act of January 18th,
1875, enacted that on and after the list
of January, 1879, the Secretary of the
Treasury shall redeem in coin the legal
tender notes Of the Urited States on
presentation at the office of the Assis-
tant Treasurer. in the city of New
York. It authorized the Secretary to
prepare and provide for such resump~
ton of specie payments by the use of
any surplus revenues not otherwise APP
propriated, and by issuing. in his dis
cretion, certain classes of bonds. More
than one and q half of the four years
have passed. Congress and the Presi-
dent have continued ever since to unite
in acts which have legislated out of ex-
istence every possible surplus applica-
BILE to this purpose. The coin in the
Treasury claimed to belong to the gov
eminent had on the 30th of June fallen
to less than SIS, 600, 900, as against $751;
900, 900 on the 1st of January, 1875,
and the availability of a part of that
sum is said to be questionable.
The are falling faster than
appropriations and expenditures are re-
duced, leaving the Treasury with dl-
minishing sourc The Secretary
has done nothing under his power to
issue bonds; the legislative commands.
the official promises fixing a day for re-
sumption have thus far been barren; no
practical preparations toward resump-
ton have been made; there has been no
progress; there have been steps backs
ward.
There is no necromancy in the opera
tons of government; the LONELY max
inns of every day life are the best stan
dards of its conduct. A debtor who
should promise to pay a loan out of a
surplus income, yet seen every day
spending all he could lay hands on in
rictous living, would lose all character
for honesty and veracity. The offer of
a new promise or his profession as to
the value of the old promise would
alike provoke derision.
RESUMPTION PLANK OF THE 81. LOUIS PLAT
The st. Louis platform d%enounces
the failure for eleven years to make
good the promise of the legal tender
notes: it denounces the omission to ac-
cumulate any reserve for the redemp-
ton and it denounces the conduct
which during eleven years of peace has
made no advance towards resumption
no preparations for it-but instead of
that. has %obstructed resumption by
wasting our and exhausting
all our surplus income.
While protesting to intend a speedy
return to specie payments, it has annu-
all enacted fresh hinderances thereto,
and having first denounced the barren
ness of the promise of a day of resump-
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