The daily gazette., 1878-09-05
CURRENCY AND FINANCE.
ADDRESS BY GEO. W. s. NICHOLSON
ra ESQ. OF sEAFORD.

ADDRESS BY GEO. W. s. NICuoI IsoN.
ESQ. OF sEAFoID. 4
The following Is synopsis of an adj
dress on currency and finance, deljyered
ny geo. W. D. Nicholson, Esq, before
the City Democratic Association on Fri
day evening.
The speaker held that til g currency
question has become a polite. al epidemic.
for which all sorts of remedies are being
suggested, save the approved results of
practical science in matters of finance.
which are consistently ignored
The great difficulty which the honest
searcher after political truth has to en-
counter is demagoguism, which is mani
tested as much in the advocate es of hard
money as in soft-in contraction as in ex-
pansion.
Currency is an incident to national life
and development, not an essential. by
reason ofits absence. A stable currency
and sufficient currency is the yery life
blood of all the commerce ira he and busi-
ness ofthe country. Barter a nd exchange
OF commodities would be the rule.
The speaker next reviewed the history
and character of money, from its earliest
connection with people and government
to the present day. He said one thing
that should be borne in mini was that
currency is in no respect an essential to
national existence; it is only conven-
fence, concomitant as it were to trade
and the interchange of commodities. In
later times we find that wherever civilized
government has been established, cur
rency has been recognized as a govern
mental attribute; and the volume has
been adapted to the wants and demands
of the people, as much SO as the armies
and navies ofthe various countries (which
are also government a'tributes) have
been enlarged or contracted as the mill
tary or naval necessities of the nation re-
quired.
Continuing his theme, and touching
upon the right and power of the govern
ment of the United States to- issue any
money ''other than gold or silver coin,"
the speaker next referred to the currency
of ancient Carthage, which comprised,
coin and leather.
Whilst there was pre- else uniformity in
governmental value, yet the distinction
made by the Senate Ohe one government
tai authority in requiring of the colonies
that the annual tribute should be paid in
in gold and silver, the effect was to make
the metallic the favored currency and
the leather the debased or deprecated
by legislative action. The metallic accu-
mulated in the treasury and abounde IN
the central city. A few men became
abundantly rich. connected as they were
| with government and unchecked and un-
restrained by any personal accountability
to the populace, after they had once been
elected to the Senate, composed as it was
of one hundred, where each year four
went in and four went out, and those
four going out admi nistered respectively
the Executive, the Naval, The Military
and the Treasury Departments. And the
riches so accumulated produced such a
state of effeminacy that Carthage was on
the decline when she contested with
Rome for nat onal supremacy.
1t would seem that the Whilom finan
cial wiseacres at Washington bad pat
lterned some what after the CarthageniaI
Isystem, in legislating that dues to the
government of import duties should bt
paid only in the metallic currency, thu.
accommodating in the treasury of the Uni
ted States a vast fund of millions on mil
lions of gold and silver, Withdrawing So
great a sum from active circulation ant
from the every day use OF the trading
aud business interests of the country
whilst that other portion of the nationa
currency, the greenbacks and the Ma
tional Bank notes, IL legally deprecated
In other words, they have destroyed fl
naucial confidence in trade and busines
. circles by non-uniformity In the nationa
currency. Trade lapguishes landed es
. tates shrink to less than half their form
3 er market value stopped works OF In
tternal Improvement no longer max
music for the million in thesteady marc
of progress and In the earnest they CAV
of still further developing the interio
resources of the country thousands c
factories, foundries and workshops, wit
machinery resting, their engines, thei
hundreds of thousands of spindles an
shuttles as quiet as the despairing enel
giles of their bankrupt owners, dot th
Isurface of the land as sorrow full mont
meDts of dead business the one onl
|. thing lively is the trade in governmer
lSecurtieS.
4 In some of the states of Europe, til
+, metallic currency rules supreme, the
a conditions being such as to render larg
! expenditures of money unnecessar.
: These States are the great money centr,
! OF the world, and In ruling the finances
: they shape the politics and even Cover
: the destinles of States thereby. The
g are the mon .y-lenders; We are th
9 lmoney-borrowers They are dstrustfl
s of all governmental credit, except that
calls for the hardest kind of hard none
! and the most assured of instrinsi
U value.
9 The currency of Great Britain is mike
t-metalhc, paper and the money OF a.
court. Whilst the standard OF the gos
ernment is gold, it recognizes the Gu
repcv feature of silver in providing an
purchasing silver in the markets
France and Germany, to amount, som'
times, of 100,000,000 annually, for e'
portation to Its India possessions an
Japan. 1t is notorious that the silvt
currency of Great Britain does not po
sess the intrinsic value it C hlls for, but /
. policy only intended it for local circul
ton it passes current by reason OF I'll
governmental value placed apon
Thus, having a recognized governments
attribute. its value is fixed and certail
and there is uniformity. Its volume
regulated by the Bank OF England:
y In France, the currency is mixed
4 cold. silver. copper and notes.-the go
Eminent providing the metallic and IL
= Bank of France, by authority OF The 90
lern,nent. the paper currency. The Gu
y rancv il all of governmental sanctio
~ and uniform in value, and the pape
money passes everywhere, the same