The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1880-05-22
The Currency Question.

To the Editor of thePdeifc Commercial advertiser.
SIR IL am not sure that I quite understand the
general line of argument pursued by the Gazette
in its last article on the Currency question, and as
it is always desirable to narrow down O discus
sion as much as possible to a few definite points,
1 shall condne my remarks at present to the last
paragraph. in which 1t is stated that "Mr. Green's
suggestion of Over-vaiuing gold would do no good,
for more money could be made by importing sill
yer at it's present over-valued current rate" The
remaining portion of the same paragraph. which
suggests the evils which might ensue if we con-
tinued to pass 80 cents in silver as 100 cents, and
called 81 in gold equal to SI.lO.' 1 shall also
pass over, as it is not at all probable that any one
will come forward to make a proposition SO gra-
tuitously unsound.
The actual position of matters with regard to
importations of silver coin appears to be thus:
There is a Section in the Act of 1876 which pro-
yides that a duty Of ten per cent be paid upon all
silver coins, from any country with which His
Majesty has not any treaty to the CONTRARY. ''Pro-
vided, that this section shall not come into opera
ton until a proclamation to that effect has been
issued by His Majesty by and with the advice and
consent of a majority Of His Privy Council, at a
duly convened meeting thereof The object oil
this section was to prevent the undue Importation
Of silver of which the Gazette complains and which
it fears. The necessary proclamation has however,
for good reasons / admit, never been issued. 1t
can however be issued at any moment This sec
ton acts then as a check upon the importation of
silver. Ii acts something like the notice we some
times see on peoples grounds to keep OF t~resspass-
ers-" Beware Of the dog " and has a certain in
huence on the general public. whether the dog be
really there or not. Again as by the same law
nobody is obliged to receive large sums in silver
except in certain defined proportions with gold,
each importer of silver coin does 1t Of his own
risk, and the moment that the bank and the mer-
chants saw that the importations OF silver was be-
coming excessive, they might shut down on the ia
cit understanding which exists now, and might
only receive silver to the extent that the law pre-
scribes, so that the large importer OF silver wonld
have II thrown on his hands.
These are the considerations which have in fact
limited the Importation of silver coin up to the
present time, and which have so far kept the guam
tity imported practically to about what the increas-
ing transactions of the country required. The i'm
portation Of silver has been made, as it should be,
under the present law, a risky business and as L
view the whole question, the very small and strictly
legitimate advance in the legal current volume of
gold here, which 1 propose. three per cent, would
induce most people who wanted coin to send for 1t in
gold in preference to silver, as that would involve no
risk whatever.
But by thus just turning the scale in favor of i'm
p~ortations of gold. should we not settle the whole
question think we should, for q means would
then present itself to everybody to return in a short
time to gold payments as prescribed by law. There
would then be no difficulty in the matter. and az we
all want the gold currency, the gold law you'd a1ork.
The moment it did, the silver bugbear would dis
appear, for nobody would then think of importing
silver in larger quantities than it was wanted, as, if
they did, they would have the pleasure of holding it
till it was wanted, which would not hurt anybody
but the importer. His Majesty's Minister of Finance
and the Privy Conusil would then also be relieved
from the awkward responsibility of advising His
Majesty to issue the proclamation to place q ten per
cent. duty on silver, (and which course is unfortu-
nately open to several objections,) for when once the
gold Law was in a state to work, We might let i'm
p%ortations of silver take care of themselves. Total
result-a u. S. gold currency, and no trouble.
shall be much pleased, however, to see any other
alterations of the law suggested which has not the
admitted inconvenience of this plan, which may
have no others greater, and which will be sure to
work. 1t is not right to go on as we are.
But it will be- quite useless to say. as | understand
the Gazette article to say, In effect, although l ad-
init not in such clear terms as it might, that the
bank or merchants should be at the expense of
bringing the gold, and more especially when we
consider one OF the reasons given why they should
do so-namely that there might be no mono
poly in exchange " or in other words so THAI
people - with money ~ may be able to corner that
very gold for export whenever they may find eE
change too high. This would truly be quite conE
yenient for the public " with money :" but is it
not expecting a little to much from weak human
nature. to require the bank or the merchants TO be
at the expense of importing gold in order to de-
priye themselves of any profit they might other
wise make on exchange an article which the
Gazette however seems to think should always be
kept on hand by somebody at a moderate price,
irrespective Of whether the basis for the exchange,
a sufficient quantity of eXpOTtable produce. ex-
lists in the country at that time or motor. at
least. il says, if you can't give us exchange, keep
a good supply of geld in the country at your own
expense so that we can always make our remit
tances abroad when we want to.
And here we are just brought back to the old
difficulty. Even s%upposng the bank and the mer-
chants went to the expense of introducing u 5.
gold for the benefit OF the public, and which they
might possibly consent to do. that public would
- box it up and export il " the very first moment
that exchange, from causes over which probably
the usual sellers had no control, got scarce and
dear, and then l presume the public would politely
request the bank and merchants to send for the gold
back again as quickly as possible, TO use for our
" circulating medium or at a heavier expense
than they incurred before. and which they would
certainly decline TO do. Ergo-if we want to get
a Z. S. gold currency here, and keep ii here. we
shall have TO circulate IL at its proper value-its
cost laid down in Honolulu-for then it will come
with ease, and go away with difficulty. instead of.
as now. Just the opposite. w. l.. GREEN.