Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1876-08-31

and the "green-back" currency has saved
US nation. r.
SirA Alison, the able and indefatigable
English historian, has born testimony to
the superior power and value of paper
money. He says, "When sixteen hundred
thousand men, on both sides, were in the
continental wars with France in Germany
and Spain alone, where nothing could be
purchased except by specie, it is not sur
prising that guineas went where they were
so much needed, and bore so high price,"
= I'm truth such was the need Of the
precious metals, owing to this cause, that
one-tcnth of the currency of the world was
attracted to Germany Us common centre,
and the demand could not be supplied;
and by decree in September, 1913, from
Peterwalsden in Germany, the allied SOW
ereigns issued paper notes, guaranteed by
Russia, Prussia and England. These notes
passed as cash from Kanlskatha to the
Rhine, and gave the currency which
brought the war to successful close"
In recent edition Of the "H!story Of
Europe" Sir A. Alison gives an addition.
evidence of the important advantages
which experience has demonstrated to re-
sulttrom the use Of paper currency.
He says, ito the suspension Of cash pay
ments by the act Of 1897, and the power in
consequence vested in the Bank of Eng
land, Of expanding its paper circulation
in proportion to the abstraction Of me.
talic currency, the wants of the country
and the resting OF the national industry
on basis not liable to he taken away by
the mutations Of commerce or the necessi.
ties of war-lt is to these facts that the sal
Walton of the empire must be ascribed."
1T is remarkable that this admirable sys-
tenn which may be called the working
power Of nations during war, became at
the close Of the war the object of the most
determined hostility on the part of the
great capitalists and Chief writers Of Pc.
litical Economy IN the county," = =
"Here, however," says Alison, "as every
where else, experience, the great test Of
the truth, has determined the question
The adoption Of the opposite system of
contracting the paper currency in proper
uon to the abstraction of the metallic cur.
rency by the acts of 1919 and 1914, fol-
lowed as they were by the monetary crises
of 1925, 1880 and 1847 have demonstrated
beyond doubt that it was in the system
Of an expansive currency that Great Brit
ain, during the war, found the sole means
Of her salvation. From 1897 to 1915 com.
merce, manufacturers and agriculture,
advanced in England in spite of all the
evils of war with rapidity greater than
they had previously done in centuries b.
fore. This proves beyond a doubt the
power Of paper money to increase the
wealth of nation" ...
! It is worth while to observe that this
same Sir Alison, who speaks so wisely on
this subject in reference to the history OF
his own country, while scanning q few
years ago the prosperity Of our country
during the war of the rebellion and i'm
mediately after, has foreboding of what
might happen and remarks: 1.-THE Ameri-
can Government may mako financial and
legislative mistakes which may check the
progress of the nation and countcract the
advantages which paper money has al.
ready bestowed upon them; they may
adopt the unwise and unjust system which
England adopted at the close of the French
war; they may resolve to pay in gold, and
with low prices, the debt contracted with
paper, and with high prices.'' "But what.
ever they may d." he adds, nothing can
shake the evidence which the experience
OF that nation during the last six years af:
fords of the power of paper money to pro-
mote nations welfare" Il