The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1876-08-09

[ SllV6r III pay beus VI uooot 49,
another view Of this question. The exist.
ing debts of the country were contracted
upon q green back basis and should be
paid in green backs. or in silver, II the
debtor prefers it. A speedy return 70 Q
gold basis will largely increase those
debts and compel the debtor to pay more
than no contracted 10 pay. That Is 70
saw, his Indebtedness will increase just in
proportion to the premium of gold over
greenbacks. If the debt is $1,000 and
payable in greenbacks, 81, 900 will pay 1T
but if specie resumption if forced upon
the country and gold shall bear pre-
MUM of IL per cent, it will require
81, l2O in greenbacks to discharge the OBJ
legation. As there Is not gold enough IN
the country to meet the wants OF e1-
change the debtor must pay in its equiv
alent.
Now, it is said that silver is only worth
seventy-nine cents on the dollar, say, for
illustration, eighty cents on the dollar in
gold, If tho debtor had nothing other
than silver with which to pay he would
be required to advance $1,000 of that
metal to pay his debt which q few
months before might have been dis.
charged with $1,000 in greenbacks. And
this is the just and humane legislation
that gentlemen demand in this House.
History is repeating itself. We have
only to look to England as far back as
1919, when Peel's currency bill "for the
restoration of cash payments was enact.
ed, beginning with an issue OF gold at
"a Is. the ounce in 1920, and ending
with the standard unit price of G3 lis.
lOAd" 1t also, among other things, pro-
vided tor gradual return to cash pay
ments. This bill passed with a unsni-
nifty rarely ever witnessed in legislation,
and seemed to quiet the fears Of nearly all
classes There were few experienced
fnanciers, however, who foresaw that it
could not meet the necessities Of the
hour; and it did not. Mr.. Goblet was
among this number. He had the bold
ness to say that "Before this bill can be
carried out million of persons at least
must die of hunger AS TO how far the
predictions of Mr.. Goblet were verified
let the historian speak:
"Distress is the real parent OF crime.
Keep people at ease and their moral
teachers nut be at fault indeed if the
mass is not we'll conducted and honest.
Plunge them into misery and desperation
and vice, and criminality shall begin to
stalk through the land. We have al
ready seen that from the increasing
pressure of the debt and taxes and from
the case with which it was affected, the
time of uttecing forged bank notes had
grown until the juries got sick Of blood;
and executions rs spectacle even ceas-
ed to interest the strangely constituted
minds that find pleasure in such ex-
hibitions. Well might this be when we
learn the appalling fact that in the single
year of 1899 one hundred and fifty per-
sons were tried at the Old Baily alone
for uttering false notes; and that OF these,
fortv-slx suffered death, being at the rate
of nearly victim per week through
the twelve months. This, however, was
only apart of the mischief OF the t'me'
"They made political libels felonies,
punishable by transportationi and lastly,
they surrounded the press with so many
difficulties, publishers OF newspapers be-
ing compelled to give security before
hand. to answer for any libel which pos
sibiy might be inserted therein, and to
deposit at the stamp office copy OF
every paper they published, that unless
backed by one of the great political par
ties that ruled the state, to con iuct
political journal became q matter of
deadly peril; and freedom of writing
was at an end. Every man who really
opposed in writing the existing system
OF tyranny and deception was snre OF
pecuniary ruin and the loss of liberty
perhaps of lie. The few honest and in
telligent public writer's at that time ex-
isting we're exiled or silenced and, upon
the whole, the most dismal and dark
year of English history was perhaps that
of 1919. That famous bill, however,
which we have Just seen the Houses OF
Parliament passed SO unanimously, soon
made amends for all. Some OF the six
acts were temporary, and expired. The
laws concerning the press, however re
main to this hour; but the changes pro-
duced by the workings OF the bill of Peel
have enabled the people partly to over
grow them, and their sting Is all but
gone.
sSuch were the fruits the revulsion OF
the paper money, a. far rs respect for the
msxims of constitutional law was con.
rerned; but it produced more novelties
than these. Amid the doubts, fears, and
general want of confidence caused by
the appalling ruin which flowed from the
sudden drawing in of the paper, and by
the bloody outrages and bitter persecu'
tons which again flowed from the effects
of that ruin, It was felt necessary to at
tempt to draw, it possible, the ties that
bound the middling classes of the nation
t. the funding and paper system still
closer, and to add, It such thing could
he accomplished, to the strength and
number of these ties. Close observers,
and those especially behind the scenes Of
this strange drama, saw that the iaofic
WAS now beginning TO show signs Of
dissolution. The people, amazed That
state of peace, instead Of its usual
blessings, had brought palpsble in.
crease Of difficulty and suffering, showed
a marked and alarming impotence
under their manifold burdens. In pro-
portion as the discomfort was strong, had
the government of q sudden become weak
That strength which is deaived from the
power of lavishing sums of money was
gone forever. The eight hundred mil
lions of debts wers borrowed and ex
pended. No increase could be made
here; and those who carried on the gov
eminent were henceforward bound by
the bill of Peel 10 pay the interest OF that
debt IN convertible money Of the value oil
f3 LIS. l0Id. to the ounce OF gold, and to
raise all their taxes in money OF the same
value, which WAS (had they known IT.
virtual bar to any future increase IN the
propor,ions,e issues Of paper, however
desirable the ease obtainable IRON such
tissues might be. "--Dotibteddys Financial
History Of England, pages $50 25S.
Mr.. Speaker, l will even at the ex-
pense of being regarded tedious make