The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-08-23
N. Y. Tribune.1
The A B G. of Finance.
The Money Question Made Clear.

GOOD MONEY REGULATES IT'S OWN VOLUME.
If more money were needed in this country
as some fancy, we should have more. For we
use specie and our prices are gold prices.
When the level is lower here than elsewhere,
gold will flow in when it is higher, gold will
flow out. Resumption has cut away the barri-
er between our money and that of the rest Of
the world, and now, if we want more, moro
will come. There is a plan to cut through tho
sands which separate the sea from the great
African desert. Streams of some size now
flow into that low basin, but are lost in its
sands Let in the waters of all the oceans, en-
gineers say, and new sea will be created and
kept always full. Resumption of specie pay
ments in this country was feat OF the same
sort. 1t opened to us all the specie of the
world, which will now regulate our supply ac-
cording to our needs. In place of dreary
desert of stagnation, it has brought new life,
and thrift and commerce. The African sea
will have two sources of supply, the ocean and
rivers that flow into the basin Our currency
also has double supply; it is open to tho
worlds monetary ocean and streams of new
notes without limit can be poured into it by
the banks OF an excess of notes there is %
possibility. Notes might so multiply as TO fall
in value stop redemption and drive out specie.
How far we are guarded against that danger
will be asked hereafter. But of lack of cur
rency, as long as notes are paid in gold on de-
mand there is no possibility. If more note;
are thought to be needed for local use, tho
banks will issue them. If more specie is need
ed, either for circulation in addition to tho
notes, or as a reserve against legal-tenders it
will come under natural laws, and according
to our needs.
This is not fancy, but fact, as our experience
fully proves. Resumption has come because
the barrier of false prices was cut away between
the industries of this and other countries, so
that gold was brought hither, and the yield
from our mines was kept here The cost OF
raising wheat, corn, and cotton, OF producing
provisions, petroleum, and other articles, and
moving them 10 the sea, was so reduced, ana
the yield of them was so increased, that it be-
came more profitable to send them abroad
than gold. So we paid off foreign debts with
our products and in the process gave good
work to hosts of men who had been Idle, and
piled up the gold from our mines and from
abroad until all doubt that the United States
could pay its notes was removed. Until wo
have an excess of money prices must remalU
at such level that we shall sell more TO other
nations than we buy from them, and mora
debts will be paid, or more gold VIII como
from abroad SO foreign debts amounting tn
many millions have been paid since the year
began, and some shipments of gold from Paris
and London to New York have been mado
since August /. Even if there should be an
excess of money here the first effect would be
an undue advance in prices; the country would
sell less and buy more; gold would soon be
wanted for export, and some notes would be
handed in for payment In a short time legal
tenders would grow scarce, and prices would
fall back to proper level. Thus some ship
ments of gold to Europe in June were each
preceded, within day or two, by closely co..
responding redemption of notes at the Treasu-
ry, and small as the movement was, it proba-
bly, helped to stop too rapid advance in prices,
of which there had been signs. As long as
notes are redeemed on demand in gold, it may
be hoped that our currency will have the self
regulating faculty of hard money which nevef
loses the one royal virtue of going surely and
swiftly where it is needed
As long as prices here are ruled by this great
regulator of the worlds markets, industry and
trade will have a healthy growth. OF growth
that was not healthy, we had more than enough
in the times of bad money and false prices
Vast sums were worse than wasted IN making
or growing things that could not De soid, III
laying too many miles of railroad, opening too
many coal mines, and building too many IRON
and other mills. What good would 1T dotb
bring into country settlement ten lawyers, or
twenty blacksmiths, where one could 40 all inc
work? Bad money and ill-regulated prices
gave undue profits to some kinds of industry or
trade-to mlddle-men and transporters es-
pecially. Thus more means and more laDor
were drawn into the very channels where they
were least needed, and our fFetsstfS-
from bad to worse, getting more Mi-adiusted
every year. until the crash came. Long pros
! tration has forced a return to more healthy
proportion of occupations 1t is said 10000 min
ers have gone from Eastern coal regions to
Western farms; host of dealers have ceased
trading and gone to producing; and so from
other overcrowded occupations men have gono
by the thousand to try new fields. No one CAL
tell how much suffering and waste would have
been prevented, had this misdirection of labor
and capital been stopped at the outset; Hard
money, by going where it is most needed, has
10 fCohf
an unnatural rise of prices, in any country or
in any branch of industry OF trade keeps spec
ulation within safer bounds, limits the charges
of transporters and the gains of middle-me1.
and SO checks diseased or disorderly growth.
IF good money should serve no other purpose
than to save this country hereafter from such a
frightful waste of means and work as we nave
seen, it will prove an incalculable blessing