Litchfield enquirer., 1877-09-06
he country where:on notes would not be

taken.
 MT. Sherman Tn the course of his speech Ion this subject committed himself to the permanent retention of United States le- gal -tender notes in the currency, or Of such ansasnotnt of then as can be kept at par with gold. aFrom thiswe utterly dis- 1 sent, believing that the government should not be in the banking business a day after it can get out of it without un- necessary disturbance to the country It iscertsfp thst the frststep istobnng she eurrencyto par Vifh aold: tlias vii
 protect the people pfthe country vho aEe by law forced kokaecept Elie government ! aotes in pAee ofaSaaI hdney n After his fAstep is taken then the legal-tender notes
 have to be considered in their relation to
 the issuers. or the government MT. Sher- man favors keeping g large amount of them in circulation; we favor paying them of as rapidly as practicable until the last vestige of them has disappeared. and hav- ling in their place real money which the government shall only be concerned in to
 the extent of determining its weight and fitness-in other words, coiningit. This is l really all he oyernment shold do; and a proper banking system would furnish all the currency needed There are sincere | advocates of had money who would en- deavor to jump to an exclusively metallic legal tender by a single leap, instead of ap- prpachfng it in a way that is safe and Dracticable
 .l We have read MT. Sherman's speech
 carefully to ascertain whether he has modified his views as to the remonetiza- ttion of the old silver dollar. but fail to find anything on the subject. It would LSnzx, I~m sAMaw w4~ ko minlster hfnOt as a poIhiciahs to have paid some attention to this sub isct, A16@ r What MT. Sherman has to say about bthe public debt is to show the large re- duction in the annual interest charges which has been made slnces President Hayes was lnaugurated. and to call atten- 1 tion to the advancing credit of the country in proof of which he cites the sale of four l per centum bonds at time when the four per centum bonds Of the German Government were at discount of i've per centum, when the Russian Govern ment could not borrow at @ lower rate than eight per centum, and when the se- euritles of the British (three per centum 1 consoisy were not abo4ea 04of 05. 21Thata Mr. Sherman should, even provided that no more four per centum bonds are sold, ] take credit for having withdrawn the re. maining $10O, ,OO0.000 of four and a half i,per centum bonds and sold nearly $78, GOO, 900 of the new. ones in the face of the best opinion obtainable, Iwhich was I that the public credit was not yet up, to
 the four per centum standard. is natural and at the same time, pardonable. Never l theless if the whole attention of the de- partment was devoted to the payment of 1 the overdue demand debts rather, than to lowering the interest on debts which are already in as good 9 position as, they could be, MT. Sherman would have more cause for congratulation.L It cannot be denied that if, when the war closed, the main effort of the Treasury Department had been to provide for the demand debt l instead of making better something that was we'll enough already--fhat is the bonded tdebt-we should have had by this time not only a, gold currency is gold and gold paper-but should have been rid of a large part, if not all the le- 1 gal tender notes. MT. Sherman, however, believes that the demand debts can |" now be brought to a gold value before uthe first of January, 1879, and that the inter,
 est charges can be reduced at the same
 time. It is to be hoped that he isnot over
 sanguine.:' Clearly, if one of the two ob-
 iects is to be sacrificed it should be the
 anuual interest charge account. ,Ij1I .9ia ea What MT. Sherman has to say about the labor question: as forced Oh spubliGat: Ftention by the strike of railroad laborers. Efors-shadows legislature dictation as to
 bhe manner inWhich capital invested in
 railroads shall be used. He says that the West. in the late war, among other
 cont olling reasons, fought the South, in the interest of the cotnmetce of the Miss isslppi River; that this commerce amount ed to only 5000, ,000 ton annually, while thelannual tonnage of four of the trunk lines of railroad IS 27, ,649;502 tons; he
 pictures the power of tbe trunk line man.
 agers-''whose will or pleasure may raise
 the freight on produce, and thus affect every farmer in the land, or may raise or
 lower the wages of every employe, and
 thus affect the broad and life of every one dependent upon these laboring mep:" and he expresses the hope ''that Congress will pass laws to establish and limit maximum
 raies ofFfreight, so that the production of a farmer may not be in dangeS of confsca- tion by exorbitant rates, that It will limit
 and restrain the cutting and reduction of
 freights So as to destroy the ability. of
 railroad compan1es to pay fair prices for
 honest labor, and prevent the companies from making paupers of men who perform essential functions in commerce. Tie wages problem and the railroad problem without doubt will, after the currency question is settled, become the leading. questions of tie day, They deserve more mature consideration than a hasty dispos. al of them by reference to Congress-. It
 can only be regretted that tEey offer an
 excuse to those persons who believe in a
 capitalization of power in the federal gov. ternment fol, adding new functions,> to, a
 govefpmept which is already overbhrden- ed.