Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1877-10-25

two thousand miles. During the pres
ent year, it is estimated that less than
700 miles will be built. Do you
know what the construction of seven
thousand miles of railway means? 1t
means nothing less than the disburse-
ment of
TWO HUNDRED MILLIONS FOR LABOR.
When that construction stops, la.
Dor earns two hundred millions in the
year less. Then there are two hum
dred millions less to be expended for
the products of other industries. The
market for lumber and for almost all
other fabrics shrinks. Saw mills,
furnaces and factories are closed, and
thousands from those shops join the
hundreds of thousands dismissed from
railway construction.
From these hints each one of you
may calculate for himself how much
the volume of business has diminished
and why it has diminished. Not
money enough? Since the lst of
January, 1875, national banks have
voluntarily retired from circulation
more than thirty-six millions of their
own notes, because there was not
profitable employment for them. Not
money enough? Why don't you make
money yourselves? Any half dozen
of you can organize and issue your
own notes for money if you win give
security to exchange coin or green
backs for them on demand. But you
protest against bank notes converta-
BILE into greenbacks. You insist up
on a circulation composed of green
backs exclusively, and convertible
into nothing except United States
bonds. Well make your United States
notes and your bonds interconvertible
and do you not certainly know that
the Immediate ofeot of that sohame
will be
| TO CONTRACT AND NOT TO EXPAND
| the volume of legal tenders? Capital
would then contract the circulation at
pleasure and would contract it large.
| ly. The greenback party, if permit
ted, would rush into the very laws
they profess so much to dread.
| But contraction is far from the
worst peril to which the inconyertible
scheme would expose us. Capital
under that scheme could alternately
contract and expand the circulation
at its own arbitrary will. The agri.
culture of this country which is the
foundation of all prosperity goes to
market once year. Seed time and
harvest are promised to us, but only
one seed time and one harvest in each
year. Three times during the last
decade, we have seen capital COM
bine to make currency scarce, just al
the time our harvests were going to
market. That end is effected by the
simple process of
LOCKING UP CURRENCY:
making special deposits of it. But
currency cannot now be locked up,
except at the loss of interest. Fiji.
teen millions were at one time SC
locked up, but the interest on fifteen
millions at 6 per cent. is over $2,40C
per day; that is heavy penalty tor
locking up. How convenient to such
operators, and how disastrous to the
farmer it would be to have the Treas
ury vaults opened, where the specu'
lators could deposit their millions, and
take interest bearing bonds in ex'
change. You may say that the Uni
| ore
not locked up, but the Treasury may
a. once issue them again. Issue
them for what? To pay appropria
tons Taxes have provided the
fund to meet the appropriations. re
pay other bonds bearing a higher rate
Of interest? But what if no such
bonds are payable? And even il
ouoh bonds are payable tho holders
cannot be compelled to surrender
them and take the notes.
Well, the Treasury may stop the
interest on their bonds, but that doe:
not put the notes in circulation. Still
you may reasonably assume that the
holder of the bond would take the
notes if he could get no interest upon
it and nothing else in exchange for it.
But the difficulty is, he could get
something else for it. He could gel
the very bonds into which your new
law makes the notes convertible.
The commercial and manufacturing
interests always want to buy your
crops as cheap as possible When
those great interests shall combine
with the regular Bear party to lock
up money, and the Treasury shall say
to them, as we are told it should say
"put your money into these vaults
here it will be out Of the reach OF
"produce buyers, and here you can
have per cent. for having it kept
!" out of circulation"
! Who does not see how easy it will
be not merely to withdraw fifteen
millions from use, but to withdraw
fifty or hundred millions. And
when fifty millions are Withdrawn
suddenly, arbitrarily, without pre-
monition or preparation, how much
money will agriculture realize upon
its harvests ?
Then when your crops are sold III a
market
| DRAINED OF CIRCULATION
and you begin to make your years
purchases, who cannot see how surely
the same syndicate would join the
Bull party Would return their bonds
to the Treasury, pocket the interest
earned upon them and flood the mar
ket with currency again, and when
| fifty millions have been suddenly and
arbitrarily poured into the market,
how much will you be able to buy
with the meagre pittance you realized
upon the sale of your crops. You
will have bound and gagged the
Treasury, and flung it at the feet of
the Wall Street gamblers, mere tool
to be used alternately by the bulls
and the bears; very sure to be the
ally of the bears when the farmers
want to sell, and very apt to be the
| allv of the bulls when the farmers