The Portland daily press., 1878-08-10
A String OF Questions.

Treasury twenty million dollars month in
exchange for four per cent. bonds? If there
were scarcity of houses would rents fall ?
Ii there were scarcity of wheat would it
sell for less? And if there were scarcity of
money would the rate of interest, the price
for its use, fall one-third? A scarcity of any
commodity will cause an eager demand for the
small quantity there is, and high prices will
be asked and given. Is there an eager de-
mand for money? If there is, why does not
the price for its use go up? The truth of
the case is that there is very little demand.
Millions of capital are unemployed in this
country to-day. Millions more are seeking
investment in bonds bearing exceptionally
low rates of interest. Were there a sharp
competition for the use of money would the
owners of il consent to accept four per cent.
interest? Would not the unavoidable law of
supply and demand result in an increase of
the rate? What is the result of limited
supply and sharp demand?
Were money scarce, interest would GER
tainly rise, and no man would be seeking
four per cent. Investment. There is no
scarcity of currency. The purchasing value
ofour currency to-day is greater than it was
in 1866. There is cry that the surplus cap
ital Of the country is being locked up in the
new bonds. How is that? The money TAX
en- into the Treasury for the four per cent.
bonds is at once paid out for the redemption
of the six per cent. bonds, and SO goes into
circulation again. What the Government is
doing is TO reduce the rate ofinterest on its OBJ
legations one-third. To do that it is not neces-
sary to withdraw currency from circulation.
All that is done is to diminish the burden of
interest without reducing the volume of mon
ey. Nor does resumption mean contrac-
ton. For every greenback note for dollar
that is withdrawn after the first of January
a dollar in coin will be put into circulation.
Where is the contraction in that? ALI that
is done is to substitute an actual dollar for
promise to pay dollar, to substitute cash
for evidences of credit. A note will be paid,
a debt discharged, and still there will be as
much currency as before. Is the discharge
of debt loss of wealth? Is not the man
who owes nothing better off than the man
that owes much? Is not this also true of
corporation, and OF that greatest of all cor
porations, Government?
That there Is already suficency of cur
rency is proved by the small demand for it
and the low rates asked for its use. That re-
sumption will not contract this currency, but
will only substitute dollar for every dollar
note withdrawn, is clear. What then is the
complaint? The complaint is that capital
will not invest in productive enterprises.
Why? Would capitalists not be glad to get
more than four per cent. interest for the use
of their money? Would they not eagerly in
vest in manufactures or other wealth-produc-
ing occupations if they were sure of good
profits? Why then do they not invest?
"There is want of confidence" is the an
swer. What produces this want of conf
dence? Is it not the fear that an equivalent
for the goods manufactured cannot be OBJ.
tained? Is it not fear that money loaned
to men who desire to go into business will
not be repaid2 These people would be glad
to lend money or to make goods if it was
profitable. Who are responsible for this lack
of confidence that we all deplore? The men
are responsible who go about the country tel
ling the people that the rich are robbing tie
poor, that interest is theft, tina. no man has
right to live in comfort while his, neighbor is
in poverty, that the poor man has right to
share in the property of the rich man, that
fbn rO11onftop of 6ahto iS o,Ifr hat fho
creditor who attempts to recover the money
he has lent is robber and an oppressor of
the people, that notes should not be paid in
money but replaced by other notes that are
never to be paid. The men are responsible
who sit at tLeir desks in newspaper offices
and echo these sentiments, who call For an
imitation Of credits, who demand that the
currency shall be debased, who insist that
the trader who sells goods or the capitalist
who lends money to-day may be paid in
which by tomorrow may shrink one.
half in value. These are the men who have
destroyed confidence; for they say to the cap
italist the dollars worth hundred cents each
you lend on three months tims shall be repaid
to you, if they are repaid at all, in the same
number of dollars worth but fifty cents each;
they say to the trader who sells on credit, the
money in which you shall be paid is money
worth but one half that in which you bought
your goods and with it you cannot replace
your stock.
Those are the men who have brought
about a want of confidence. The way to
restore confidence, to revive industry, to
stimulate trade, is for the people to discard
these wild preachers of financial and econom-
ic vagaries, to reject their doctrines, to adopt
currency that will be as good year hence as
now, to convince men who lend and sell that
the dollars they are to receive will be as good
as the dollars they lent and equal in value to
the goods they sold; to convince Industrious
men that the money they earn or the surplus
under forms of law; to convince people who
hare capital to invest that they shall not be
robbed by an irredeemable, fuctuating paper
to convince men of enterprise and
skill that it is for their interest to work hard
and live frugally, for they shall be protected
in the enjoyment of their earnings. In short
the way to restore confidence is to return to
the good old stable standard of value, when
the man who sold on credit bushel of corn
for dollar knew that when he was paid he
would be paid dollar and not merely fifty or
thirty cents called dollar. The way to re-
store that confidence necessary to revival of
business is to resume specie payments.
Those Appropriations Again.
The request of the argus was complied