Mexico weekly ledger., 1878-10-31
THE WAY OF RUIN.

ded by unprecedented distress in the
midst of abundant crops, and of ex.
ports exceeding all former experience,
various financial schemes have been
proposed as pretended modes of re-
lief, none of which has the merit of 8
substantial basis, and all of which.
when subjected to the test of praeti.
cal examination, are found to rest or
nothing. 1t is but natural, wher
millions of men and women are un.
employed and ready to listen to art.
full appeals with attention, quickened
by personal suffering, that these pro-
jects of making cheap money, and
enhancing ostensibly the value of Ia.
Dor, should make a larger dodgment
than in ordinary times.
The leaders take care not to make
it clear that just in proportion as this
process of imitation might augment
wages, the price of rent, ofmeat, and
bread, and clothing, and of every
hous ehold article would be raised,
and when the collapse came the loss
would mostly fall on the great mass
who toll with their hands.
More than one hundred and fifty
years ago, John Law became Comp
troller-G General of the finances OF
France, upon the strength of pro-
iect for establishing q bank and q
Mississippi Company, by the profits
of which the national debt was to be
paid off. Three years before he had
opened bank in his own name, un-
der the protection of the Duke Of Or
leans, then Regent of France. The
prospect of immense gains seduced
people of every condition to subscribe
for shares in the bank and the com
pany, SO that in two years they rose
upward of twenty fold the original
value, and were nominally worth more
than eighty times the amount of all
the current specie in France. But
when Law reached the climax of his
artificial power, he fell, as Jay Cooke
did in 1878, and involved tens of
thousands of families in utter ruin.
Seventy years later, when the
Revolution uprocted the old social
foundations, the chiefs devised a
scheme for issuing notes, called as
signates, bearing interest at three
per cent. 1t was known as project
for ''coining the whole land of The
country into money!" except nat no
coin was used to carry it out. TIE
French people were told, rs the
American people are told now about
"'the fiat money!" that wealth, COM
fort, and happiness would follow in
the train of the assignates.
Barnave denounced Laws scheme,
the memory of which still survived
after two generations had passed
away, as based "upon the phantoms
of the Mississippi ;ours upon the solid
basis of ecclesiastical lands" Mira
beau threw all his weight into the
scale, and maintained that the assig-
mats could not be better secured than
upon the land on which they were is
sued. In his fiery way, he exclalm-
gage on garden than on a kingdom.
Perverted eloquence, passionate pow
er, misguided craftsmanship, and
mighty intellectual vigor could not
avert the calamity which the few who
remained calm in the midst Of the
violent throes of the Revolution knew
to be inevitable. The crash came
and with it widespread bankruptcy,
and the assignats were as worthless
rs the notes and bonds of jeff Dayis's
Confederacy.
If the blow had fallen on the arti-
ficers of this huge fraud and their
confederates it might have been borne
with patience by the rest of the world,
but it crushed the firesides of labor
and bred misery among those who
were least able to bear it. The re-
suit is summed up by philosophic
historian. in these instructive words:
Before the end of the year 1795 the
paper money was almost exclusively in
the hands of the working classes. employ
ees. and men of small means, whose pro-
perty was not largo enough to inv est in
stores of goods or national lands. The
financiers and men Of large means, tn ough
they suffered terribly, were shrewd
enough to put much Of their property
into objects of permanent value. The
working classes had no such foresight. or
skill, or means. On them finally came
the great crushing weight of the loss At
ter TIE first collapse came W the cries of
the starving, roads and bridges were neg.
lected, manufactures were generally given
up in utter helplsssness. None felt any
conhdence in the future in any respect,
none dared to make an investment for
any length of time. ard it WIS accounted
folly to curtail the pleasures of the mo-
ment to accumulate or to save for an un-
certain future
This is the sort of entertainment 10
which the people of the United States
are invited. Indeed, the advocates
of the so-called fiat money propose
something worse than the French as
signats, for that had at least the lands
of the Crown and Church to fall back
upon. Our magnificent financlers,
who would like to food the country
with paper, reject gold, silver, lands,
and everything valuable, and expect