The New York herald., 1877-02-05
President Grants Specie Message
Duty OF Congress.

favor of an immediate return to the specie
standard. Their views deserve to have
weight with Congress for the following
among other reasons First, because
business activity in this city depends on the
prosperity of all the States, so that our
bankers and merchants have no in
terest in conflict with the general inter-
est of the country; and. second, be-
cause the owners of capital are, MS
a class. intelligent and keen sighted, and
have stronger motives than other men
for bestowing sufficient attention on this
question to understand it,. We, OF course,
do not maintain that their Judgment should
be accepted by Congress on trust without
examination, but we do assert that their
business intelligence and the identity OF IN
terest between them and the country at large
entitle them to n fair hearing and create
presumption that they are right which can
be rebutted only by valid reasons. The
subject is too important and the claims OF
our merchants to attention are too respect
able to make it anything less than gross
dcreliction of duty for Congress to ignore or
postpone o question which so vitality
concerns the public welfare. We are war
ranted in laying stress on the solidarity OF
interest between this metropolis and the
whole country. When the country pros
pers this city prospers with it; when the
country suffers this city languishes. Not q
COW is MIXED, not colt is foaled, not
field is planted, not factory built, not
mine opened, not n railroad constructed
in any part Of the United States in which
the city Of New York has not IN in
terest. The great Father of Waters, the
mighty Mississippi, is not more depend
ent on the droppings from the clouds
upon remote mountains and forests on the
moisture which oozes from the soil over
vast areas and gathers into rills and stream
let's to feed its tributaries, than this great
mart of commerce is upon the farms and
workshops, the industry. enterprise and
prosperity of every part of our broad land.
When drought overspreads the vast basin
of the Mississippi the river sinks within its
banks and keels Craze long reaches of mud;
but let tho windows be opened in distant
regions filling the soil with moisture, and
the river soon swells up to the brink of its
channel, floating thousands of vessels
over snags and distractions. This is
type which may serve to represent
the influence of business drought or busi-
ness abundance throughout the country on
the life, activity and prosperity of this me-
tropolis through which the collected
streams of American trade embouche into
the ocean of.foreign commerce. The pros
perity of New York is an exact measure of
the prosperity of the country, bound to it as
effect is bound to it's cause. When, there
fore, our commercial classes demand with
one voice, demand with emphasis after long
lad anxious study of the business situation,
that Congress improve this opportunity to
hasten specie payments, they speak not
merely in their own behalf, not from any
narrow view in their own interest, but as
representatives of large corporation, SO to
speak, whose dividends must be shared by
all the other stockholders distributed far
and near. If they can be credited with in
telligence enough to understand their own
interests they ought to be needed, because
their interests and those of the whole coun-
try are identical. It is on this ground that
| we solicit tho attention of Congress to the
unanimous support given by this great bust
ness community to the timely recommends
ton of President Grant.
But the views of this community on the
resumption question must not be misunder-
stood The business men of New York do
| not ask the immediate payment Of gold for
~ 80 IL -
notes at the counters of the banks This
would be chimerical What is really de-
manded is that the present small premium
on gold shall be reduced to four per cent,
| three per cent, two per cent, one per cent,
and finally to zero, by q steady ad-
process begin at once. There is no
necessity for any actual use Of gold
during it's continuance, nor for some
time after it's completion. The paper cur
rency of France has been steadily at par for
now more than three years, and yet it is not
redeemable in gold on demand, although
the Bank of France has long held stock Of
gold equal to between four hundred and
five hundred million dollars Of our money
It may be expedient to maintain our cur.
rency in the same condition for a shor,
period after it has been brought to par ir
order to afford the government and the
banks sufficient timo to- accumulate suf
ficient gold reserves without putting then
to inconvenience or forcing the market
The example of France attests the prac
ticability of keeping a paper currency a
par during period of preparation withou
actually redeeming it in gold, and we may
perhaps, borrow something useful from he
monetary policy. For the present th'
leading measure recommended by Presiden
Grant is about all that is required-n namely