The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1878-08-09

DO lar more nArm IMAM gOOQ. we
are in favor of q gentle and steady
rain of currency, increasing from
year to year as population, indus
tries and business increase-not q
waterspout system of supply, with
congress to crok it up or let it loose
as it takes q notion. To suddenly
add 81, 100000 or $500, 600, to
our present supply of currency,
might cause great speculative excite
ment, whereas even S2,O0O,0O0,000
might be added by degrees, in the
carefully guarded method proposed
in G's plan, with very little compar-
alive speculation and Initiation. A
rise in the prices of property, pro-
ducts and labor, if gradual and by
reason of a healthy demand for
them, is not inflstion but rise re-
sulting from a fever of excitement
and speculation, is initiation, and
must always be followed by reac-
ton aud consequent hard times. As
the greenbRck platform reads, it
proposes to suddenly increase the
currency by five times its present
amount, with no limit to the proba-
BILE increase beyond that ; and that
such a flood like method of in
creasing the currency would result
in initiation of prices ''tO an unpre-
cedented extent" we think very ev-
ident, and hence we object to the
method proposed by the present
greenback platform as rash, reck-
less, and probably ruinous in its eff
fects on business, to say nothing
of the moral question of the I'M
necessary reputation which it in
wolves.
The greenback party platform of
this year also errs, as we think, in
condemning the interconvertible
bond. The automatic self-regulat-
ing operation of that form of bond,
in providing the amount of curren-
cy in the market, would be as supe-
rior to congressional action as the
motion of the tides is to that of 3
locomotive, for the purposes in
question. The maximum amount
being limited, with its extent de-
pending on the population and bus
mess (the latter guaged by the pri-
NAL industry of agricultural labor)
of the country, the market supply
of money would depend on the ex-
tent to which it could be safely loan
ed or used in business at q return
of over three per cent. All that
could be thus used would be, and
no more, and the supply would reg
ulste itself year in and out, without
any congressional interference, and
low rates of interest would be es-
tablished in comparison to those
which, more than all other causes
combined are sucking the life blood
out of productive industry. Values
once fixed in currency under this
system, would rise and fall mostly
in accordance with the supply of
and demand for each article con-
cerned, and a reliability of values
would be attained far beyond that
which the always and inevitably
uncertain system of specie redemp-
ton can possibly secure. Nothing
short of g constitutiOnally limited
supply of legal tender paper curren-
cy can ever give any such currency,
redeemable in specie or not, the re-
liable values which are claimed for
gold and silver, and which, because
of natural Limitation of supply,
they to a great extent possess. But
the greenback platform proposes to
open the floodgates both now and
whenever any congress thinks it
necessary. Therefore it is a rash
and reckless method, and should be
discarded in favor of more carefully
studied, prudent and efficacious
methods of accomplishing the desi-
rable objects which friend Snediker
well states in the closing part of his
letter.
The greenback platform, like that
of any other party, should stand or
fall on its merits. To approve it
simply because it has been adopted
by the party conven ton, is to act
with the blind partizanship that will
make any party an incubus. 1t may
be the best of the platforms which
can be voted upon this campaign,
but that is no reason why it should
not be freely criticised, even by the
staun chest friends of the greenback
cause. We hold that protective in
dustry cannot thrive under q hard
money policy; we also hold that it
cannot thrive, or permanently exist,
under q system Of printing and dis
tributing legal tender greenbacks
to any extent which congressional
caprice dictates. There is 8 middle
ground upon which we think all the
interests involved can safely and
permanently adjust themselves.