Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1878-08-10

| NO udliOH On edfJ0 ever maintained re-
| deemable paper equal to the amount of coin
| In such country. 10 fact, no great debtor
nation ever maintained specie payments at
| all. England, France and Germany, the
chief creditors and specle-payin countries,
have three times more coin than redeen1able
paper. Before the war, when we had paper
currency spasmodically redeemable, we never
had volume of paper equal to the amount
| OF coin In the United States. How can we
now expect to maintain resumption with less
than three hundred million dollars of coin In
| the country, and near six hundred and fifty
| million dollars of paper-loaded down as we
| are with enormous foreign debts and expend-
itures, which in any year can drain away ev-
| cry dollar of our coin? 1t can't be done.
| The only possible way to maintain specie
| payments is by extinguishment of our annual
foreign tribute, and by sweeping reduction OF
| our paper currency, entalllng far greater
business calamities than we have yet endured.
THE ADVOCATES OF RESUMPTION
rest their hopes on three fallacious assump-
| tons:
First-They say the people of this country
will not call for gold. Recollect that resump
| ton means that every bank depositor or gov
| eminent creditor shall have his free choice of
| gold or silver for his debt. There are about
| $3.50, 0O0,0 900 of legal-tenders and $500, 0O0,-
| 600 of bank paper, and So. l00,000,000 of
national and other bank deposits, every holder
OF which must be given gold if he de-
| mand it, before resumption can be regarded
| as established. Were the national banks
right bower of the treasury department-to
refuse to pay gold to either note-holders or
deposltors, the refusal would be interpreted
| to mean weakness at the treasury. Cent?
dence would be shaken. The secretary re-
lies on confidence as a substitute for two
thirds of the coin needed. When that is
shaken resumption dies. To retain the con-
| 6dence, all national banks must pay gold as
freely as paper or silver, if demanded. Now
the people outside of the Pacific slope have
no gold. They sold their hordes ten or fif-
teen years ago. Won't they want it? OF
course they will. l venture the prediction
that the gold the secretary has boarded at
| such effort and cost will not supply the home
demand alone. The second fallacious story
is that the secretary of the treasury can re-
fuse to pay gold and silver for greenbacks,
and that the banks. exporters and people
will not want silver. But he will have but
$40, 000, 900 to $50 100000 of silver dollars.
If he refuses to pay gold when demanded,
he will advertise his inability to resume in
gold. 1t will 10y that act be put at a premi-
UNI; his barricade of silver will be drawn
out to get at the gold, and
resumption will collapse in BLACK Friday"
The third fallacy of the resumptionists is
that the balance of the merchandise trade
for the past eighteen months Is making the
maintenance of assumption certain. But it
brings US no gold, for the reason that we pay
tribute each year to Europe of not less than
two hundred million dollars for interest on
American bonds aud investments, expenses
of foreign residence and travel, and cost of
foreign shipping. That tribute far exceeds
any balance of merchandise trade which it is
possible for US to keep up. 1t has carried off
more than the whole coined product of our
mines since 1861, leaving us poorer in the
precious metals now than then. This balance
of merchandise trade has checked for the
time being the export of gold but brought
us none. If it exceed our foreign tribute the
balance is paid US in our bonds, not in gold.
THIS LARGE BALANCE OF TRADE Is NOT
HEALTHY OR LASTING.
1t is spasmodic symptom of the prostra-
ton of our industrial system. The aggre-
gate of our foreign trade, exports and i'm
ports combined, has fallen off largely since
the resumption law passed. The loss is in
imports, because we are too poor to buy. Ex-
ports have increased, because home consump-
ton has diminished, and our warehouses
must empty on foreign markets at any price
their glut of wares unstable at home. A
failing merchant who is forced to sell out be-
low cost, while his family is ragged and hun
CRY, might as well brag of his large business
as we of our increased exports. While this
has been gong on our foreign tribute is be-
ing paid in goods at half price, instead of
partly in gold as heretofore. Hence the ex-
port demand for gold has fallen off, and its
premium consequently is reduced to almost
nothing. Now just so long as we are kept
too poor to consume the usual quantity OF. our
own and foreign products, and so long as
raw material and raw products are kept at or
below the cost of production, and labor is
kept at starvation wages, we can undersell
the world, pay our foreign tribute wholly in
products, keep our gold, and enjoy the bless
ing of specie payment-prOCided our OiOn
people 'front.' ask for gold. The tremendous
sacrifices which have nearly brought equal-
nance of resumption. Approximate equalI-
cation has been forced by contraction and
boarding, and consequent
BREAKING DOWN OF PRICES BELOW THE
GOLD LEVEL.
Meantime the government boards gold, gath
cred from our mines and the banks, and don t
pay out dollar except for interest on bonds.
But the day approaches when the treasury,
instead of being the receiving reservoir, is to
become the distributing reservoir for all the
banks and all who want to ship, or hoard, or
use, or speculate in gold. Success depends
not only on attaining equalization before the
outpour begins, but also on being able to sup
ply all corners, at home or abroad, with all
the gold they want for greenbacks. If the
secretary should hoard all greenbacks re-
deemed, he will still further crush and de-
stroy the business of the country, for the gold
paid out will not move the currents of trade
as greenbacks do, but will largely settle in
boards of reserve or go abroad. And the
country will rise IN arms against such pro-
tracted pressure and smash the machine.
But if he should las | believe he will mott pay
out greenbacks as fast as redeemed, then the
increase of currency, though it will not be
large, will be enough to lift the screw pres
sure from business, and it will revive, wages
will increase, consumption OF home and for
eign products return toward normal condi-
ton, and forthwith our boasted balance of
trade will disappear, and our annual tribute
to Europe will again be paid IN part by an
annual shipment of from fifty to sixty million
dollars of gold, as for twelve years before the
resumption law passed. Then the mad at
tempt to resume specie payments without a
quarter of an adequate supply of coin, and
under conditions of foreign debt and expendi-
ture which made success impossible, will col
lapse.
THE COUNTRY WILL THEN SHAKE OFF THE
RULE OF THE UsURERS
and theorists who have navigated it
over Niagara; and the attempt will
take its merited rank in history as a gigantic
robbery of the people and a high crime
against civilization. Our people are in debt
$4,000 100000 for government, individual
and corporate obligations. These debts rep
resent an annual interest of $500, ZOO, 900 or
$900,000,000 year. Our government taxes,
rational. State and municipal. are about
$3.50, 100000 annually. Excluding the taxes
for interest on bonds, the two sums together
represent an annual charge OF near 81 ,5O0,-
900 a year. This sum is about twice the
amount of the annual increase of wealth in
the United States, after deducting living ex-
penses, and is equivalent to interest at six
per cent. on a sum greater than the present |
selling value of all the property, real and per-
sonal, in the United States. 1t Is this condi- |
ton of unparalleled Indictment and taxation
which makes the question of the volume of |
money we are to have so transcendently i'm
portant.
THE VALUE OF MONEY DETERMINES VALUES !
The scale ofpresent expenditures having been |
fixed, and the public and private indebted |
CESS contracted, on a basis Of values more |!
than twice as high as those of to-day, res
toration of values is demanded by every con- |
sideration of honesty and craftsmanship. But |
there can be no restoration of values without |
the utter abandonment of resumption, and |
restoration of the currency to its per capita |