The daily gazette., 1877-12-17
From the n. Y. Sun.
AFTER RECONCILIATION, WHAT2

The dispute whether the silver dollar
snail he recoined or not is of inconside-
rable Importance compared with the fur
Lher question of what we are going to do
with 1t after it is recoined. If we are to
make it basis for the resumption of
specie payments, it will be one thing :
but II it is only to be used for the pay
ment OF the public creditor, it will be
quite another.
For the resumption of specie payments
the country needs about $200,000,000 of
coin. The consumption by our mints of
this amount of silver would, probably, so
far absorb the present surplus stock of
the metal as to raise it's price from about
eight per cent. discount, as compared with
gold, TO about one or two per cent, or
just enough to make the shipment of
gold abroad profitable business. Ger
many has about $100,000,000 of silver to
sell, and we should take all that. Some
silver would also come from France, and
the rest our own mines would furnish.
BY and by, too, when trade with India
and China has resumed its usual course,
silver will flow to those countries and
thus become scarcer and dearer. The
advocates of the silver dollar are right in
asserting that its depreciation is owing
in great measure to its disuse rs cur
rency, and if we adopt it honestly and
fully, the principal mischief to be feared
from it is, as we have before pointed out,
our entire isolation from the money re-
serve of Europe, and the consequent ag-
gravation of any financial distress which
we may hereafter experience.
If, however, after the restoration of
the silver dollar, the resumption of specie
payments is indefinitely postponed, a
very different result will ensue. The
single use 10 which the coin will be put
in that case will be the payment of the
interest and principal Of the public debt,
or, as we can only pay off the outstand-
ing bonds by issuing new ones, the coin
will practically be needed for the pay
ment of the interest of the debt only. =
For this purpose a comparatively trifiing
amount will suffice. The Treasury at
present pays out coin for interest as tol-
lows:
January and July, S23 300 900
February and August. 6,30O,0O0
March and September, 1000 900
April and october, 800 900
May and November, 6,30O,o 900
Total for each half year, S43,7OO, 900
Total for the year, 400 900
The largest payment at any one time
it will be observed, is in January, when
it amounts to $23,300,000; and as the
coin speedily finds its way back to the
Treasury through the Custom House,
this sum may be taken as the extreme
limit OF the actual sum required for inter
est payments during the whole year. 1t
is safe to assume that of $23, 100000 paid
out IN January and July, at least So
100000 will be returned in duties by
February and August, $7,000,OO0 more
by March and September, 100000 more
by April and October, $6,300,O00 by
May and November, and the rest in time
for the next July or January payments.
Certainly S25,000,000 in silver will be
enough and to spare, particularly as none
of 1t will be exported to Europe.
Supposing, then, we recoin the silver
dollar, and at the same time do not re-
sumo specie payments, we shall employ
only $25, 100000 of the existing stock of
silver In the world, and it is hardly ne
cessary to say that its price will not rise
much if anything above that at which it
stands now. While reconciliation with
resumption would bring silver nearly up
to par with gold, RECOMMENDATION without
resumption would leave it where il is,
and be bald measure for scaling down
the public debt by paying it in cheaper