The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1876-01-19
Opposed TO Contract OLA SOuthsider
on the Currency Question.
tors of the Richmond DisD1tch

L0ltOrS OF We hlCRWOHu DeSpdLCH
Having seen in your paper Of about the
Goth of November an article on the curren-
cy copied from the Providence (R. ~ Jour-
nal, commended by you as ''the best the
North has produced" read it carefully and
lion, and eager to have my doubts resolved
and my fears dispeled as to the great ques-
ton whether the return to specie-paym
in 1879 will or will not be necessarily attend
ed with ruinous and disastrous contraction
of the circulating medium. The tone in
which the writer's opinions were announced
sayorcd more Of the earnestness Of sincere
conviction and the confidence OF assured
knowledge than of the comp.acency of self
satisfied ignorance. Il required but little
modes.v in me, then, to be slow in rejecting
the arguments Of such writer and to apply
myself to revision and scrutiny of my own.
But with all the seif-renunciation can prac-
| tice, and all the thought, study, and informa.
ton can bring to the subject, remain sill
uncouyinccd.,
The writer says that when the period ar
| riyes all the Government has to do is to ar
nouncc that it will pay off greenbacks either
With gold or with bonds having long time
to run, bearing interest at 3.65 per cent,
payable. both principal and interest, in gold.
Such a bond, he thinks, judging from the
present prices paid for such bond in cur
rency, will be at par with gold, and will be
received on payment for greenbacks instead
of gold. AS soon as the Government is
ready to act in tue matter greenbacks, being
redetmable with gold, or bonds as good as
gold, will instantly rise to par with gold 4;
will pass current as gold. Nobody will hesi-
tate to give gold for them, as heretofore they
have done. Those not yet redeemed will
not be presented for redemption, but will
remain in circulation as convertible paper
money while al the gold and silver which
have been boarded by miSers or locked up 10
the vaults of banks will come GU; from their
hiding-paceS and prisons where they have
| been confined so long, or will return from
| the foreign countries to which. they have
| been banished by the imposibility of their
circulating at par with deprecated paper
GU "rency.
AL this good money, so long put under
the ban by the legal-tender lew, will hail as a
jubilee the happy era When paper is made as
good as specie, and when specie can show
itself again, and can, without degradation,
submit to the equality of paper money. The
consequence will be that In place of the few
green backs uithdraua we shall have great
deal of gold added to the circulation, so that
instead of having too little we shall have too
much and he actually attempts to comfort
us under, the fear of this most unexpected
evil by showing how, when it comes, we
may bear or get rid Of it. He says to accom-
plsh all this amount of good the Govern
ment may have to spend say 500, 900 in
redeeming greenbacks, but certaiGiy not
more. This is the happy picture he draws.
Would that it were true. But Oh! canas
spes hominun, falLacesque erpectationes /"
A!is! truth compels me to present very
different picture.
We are Informed that our circulating me-
dunn now is S7S4, 100000 in paper DOney-
viz S400. 000,0 900 Of greenbacks, and 1884,
900, 900 of national.bank notes, redeemable
in green backs. AS the law nov stands, after
1st January, 1879, every debt then de will
be deInaDdable in specie. As soon as that
period arrives every national-bank mole Will
be presented to The banks for redemption in
greenbacks, and every greenback to the
Treasury for redemption in specie. When
this process is completed our circulating me-
dunn will be reduced to 300, 000, 600 Cittle
more than half its former Volume), all in
specie. Property will be reduced ut least
fly per cent. in value specie will have dou-
BILE the purchasing power the paper money.
now has; it will command high rate OF in-
terest and United States bonds, now worth
l176r lis in currency, while gold mot being
now the circulating medium) is worth l13 or
la, and consequently is below par with
bonds, will then fall below gold, when 1t is
the only circulating money, and has
acquired double the purchasing power pa
PEI money now has. A United States bond
now above par with gold will then be far
bslow II, as bonds VIII not answer to buy
property, but gold VII. A bond now to
gold as lis to la will then be as lis to 22S
or a. % to LII, What prospect then will