The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1877-06-01
Financial limitations.

Financial 1mI lalIOma.
The Chicago Journal of Com
merce critizising a recent commu-
nication in the Inter Ocean, entitled
"The American Consol," while OBJ
jecting to mere limitations of Eng
lish presidents, makes some we'll
timed suggestions, few of which
we copy as follows:
"MOst OF our recent secretaries of
the treasury have been servile imi-
tators of the British system of
finance. And what is most aston
ishing they have taken no warning
from the disastrous results of that
system. They have read volumes
of the details of poverty, suffering
and distress that came on the peo-
pie of England, when Parliament
enacted laws to return to specie
basis, q few years after Britain had
exiled Napoleon. The facts have
for years been portrayed before
them and sounded in their ears con-
corning the mYriads who had pur-
chased property at fair valuation,
and had paid half or two-thirds of
the purchase money and then, in
consequence of the specie basis act
and the necessary depletion of the
currency, property became Sc de-
preciated that those unfortunate
debtors lost not only the thousands
already paid but the property itself,
leaving them entirely penniless.
Our finance ministers seem to have
made up their minds that this coun-
try must necessarily pass through
tho scenes of distress and endure
all the shame, sorrow and disgrace
of bankruptcy through which many
worthy men in Britain passed in
their painful road to specie basis.
Any ordinary mind would con-
Glade that if British financial theo-
rieA and schemes brought such dis
tress and suffering on the people
generally, and on the unfortunate
debtor class in particular, our finan-
cial ministers would have devised
better plans. But they did not.
President johnson, both Houses
of Congress, and Secretary McCul-
loch, seem to be of one accord in
their conclusions: First, we must
return to q specie basis at all haz-
ards and, Secondly, the only road
thither was q destruction of the
greenback-thep power that had say
ed the nation! And this, too, was
commenced against the protestations
of some OF the most experienced
bankers and wisest men of the re-
pubficl But the work of destruc-
tion went on but short time before
the groans of the people reached
Congress. Many of its members be-
came alarmed. Whether they fear
ed they would fail of reelection,
or whether they became wiser by
what they had heard or learned, we
have never been able to determine,
but q majority was found to forbid
O further contraction of the curren-
cy, and so this vandalism ceased for
q season.
England needs and has a circula-
ting medium of S25 per capita
France S35; Germany SOB. The
United States has but $3.50. The
sparseness of our population and
the great extent of our country re-
Quire q much larger currency than
any one of these three nations, and
yet we have but half as much al
France.
We need no securities under thu
name of 'consols,' like the British
nor 'rentes,' similar to France, but
we need, and must have, to insure
the prosperity we deserve, at ma
tional greenback certificate as low
as $25 and from that to 81 900, made
interchangeable with q national cur.
reucy paying an annual interest o.
3.65 per cent, but no other kind o.
paper money except the, greenbacl
treasury note" ftsi ..