The Portland daily press., 1878-09-02
MONDAY MORNING. SEPTEMBER g
Resumption Of specie Payment.

As a bank director, have had experience
several times of the suspension and subsequent
resumption of specie payments. Before the
first suspension within my memory, the bank
managers of Portland had had no experience
in that matter, and 80 the measure was re-
sorted to at last, and only under the pressure OF
great necessity, as one of extreme dlfhculty
and danger.
But when the crisis had passed. the bank re-
sumed payment once more, and there was not
the slightest shock resulting from it to busi-
men, Some of the bank men imagined that on
resumption day everybody who had bank
note would run to the counter for the specie,
and 80 the banks would speedily be reduced to
great straits. But there was nothing of the
sort, nobody demanded specie for bills, because
no one wanted it in preference to the paper,
and business went on precisely as before.
Our Greenback friends imagine. that on the
first of next January, there will be great
shock In financial circles as the result of "re-
sumption" There will be nothing of the kind.
The people will wake up on New Years day
next, and in no way, except through the morn
ing papers, will they be aware that 'resump-
ton" has taken place. Buying and selling
will go on exactly as before, without the slight
est sensation in the markets of whatever sort /;
the produce market, the stock market, the
shipping market, the labor market, the gold
market, none of them will be affected on the
first Of January next, by resumption.
The reason of this is, that all business mat
ters will have been already adjusted to the new
order of things. and this adjustment will be SO
very small a matter, that no disorder of any
kind, nor to any interest, will be produced by
it There will be absolutely no demand for
gold-why should there be?-except possibly
bills of exchange should be dearer than gold,
which is hardly possible, because our exports
are very much larger than our imports.
At present. gold is ] or of / per cent. pre-
mium, and all persons would now prefer the
gold to paper for that reason If they could have
1t, though the difference is very small. But
for some days before the first of January next,
this premium will entirely disappear, and then
there can be no possible reason why any man
of common sense should prefer the gold to
bank notes. The latter will be exactly the
same in value everywhere and for every pur-
pose, at the same time that the paper will ba
very much more convenient
But our greenback friends cannot be affected
by any such facts or any other demonstration,
because they want irredeemable money
that is, notes with no more value of any sort
in them. than in pieces of brown paper of the
same dimensions, because they bear no prom
ise of anybody to pay them, and they are not
to be paid. Our friends say that the credit of
this great and rich country will make them
good, if they have the Government stamp
upon them. This would be true, ths quantity
being not too large, if the notes should bear
upon them the promise of the Government to
pay them on demand or at q time fixed. But
they are to bear only the stipulation that they
are not to be paid at all at any time either in
the near or remote future. 1t seems to me,
therefore, to require only very small share of
intelligence to see that there is no question of
credit involved in such notes. 1t would be
quite the same thing as to their value, whether
they should bear the government stamp of in
surrectionary Cuba or that of England They
would be equally worthless in either case-for
the conclusive reason that they are never to be
paid.
A workingman met me in the street one day;
and handing to me promissory note which he
had received for work, asked when it was
payable. 1t read: "Value received promise
to pay Thomas Blank $756.42 in hay at my
farm, at market price, from time to time, as I
can spare it," In this specimen Of financial
skill. there was some value, to be determined
by the courts, because it was promise to pay
in valuable commodity. But the "absolute
money''-(absolute nonsense)-of our friends is
to state upon its face that it is never to be paid
never-not even from time to time, as govern
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