The Brookhaven leader., 1891-03-05
A LAND CURRENCY.

tApOOlllOh VI n obCAu Va hhohNNB
the pen of E. NJ. Burchard, knowing
that such a treat was in store for the
readers of the National View, which
treat was indeed served up to them in
the issue of January 8. of course, l
have long known that Brother Burchard
was enrolled in the rapidly swelling
ranks of the redeemed and emancipated
army of reform, and that he was re-
leased from the bondage of supersti-
tious ignorance and emancipated from
slavish fealty to the god of gold"
| But to return to the subject of land
currency. There are land currency
men, unlimited" who believe it to be
practicable and proper to coin our en-
tire land values into money, and let the
interest upon the same, paid by the unit
to the whole, take the place of all other
forms of taxation. l have, in former
contribution to the National View,
pointed out some of the difficulties and
dangers in the way of such system.
Land currency men, "limited," earnest
ly believe in the benefcent idea of issu-
ing by the whole (people) to the unit
(individuaD, full legal tender paper
money upon the security of land, but
believe that such issue 1 should not
exceed the amount necessary with
which to do business upon a cash basis;
| (2) would not exceed such an amount,
providing the system was so regulated
as to make the volume or supply auto
matte. They do not believe that it
would be possible for the people to use
such an enormous volume of money as
that the interest upon it, at per cent,
would pay all the National, county and
municipal expenses; nor do they believe
that much, if any, value, would attach
to volume of currency so enormously
inflated They bear in mind the axi-
omatic truth so we'll expressed by Fichte,
that: "The amount of money current in
a State represents every thing that is
purchasable on the surface of the State.
If the quantity of purchaseable articles
increases while the quantity of money
remains the same, the value of the
money increases in the same ratio, If
the quantity of money increases, while
the quantity of purchasable articles re-
mains the same, the value of money de-
creases in the same ratio" But they
none the less steadfastly believe that
our present volume of currency is alto
gether too ridiculously small to enable
us to do business on a cash basis.
Let us see ii we can determine about
what amount of money we lack of hav-
ing enough to do cash business. The
bank deposits of nation represent, to
a close approximations all the money in
the hands of the people, that is not the
property of the banks. Such deposits,
as also the capital, surplus, etc, of the
banks should be, and theoretically are,
actually in existence, and susceptible
of actual naturalization at any mo-
ment of time. Let us see, then, what
the Comptroller's report teaches us con-
cerning these cash items. The Nation
al, savings, State and private banks,
and the various loan and trust COM
panies claimed to have and to be able
to produce the enormous sum of IS, 201,-
GIL, 100. This amount was embraced in
the items capital, surplus, profits and
deposits, as shown in the financial
statements and official reports of the
various banking institutions and loan
and trust companies on June 80,
1889. l estimate that there was,
at that date, including and count
ing gold and silver certificates,
only the sum, in round numbers,
of 81, $50, 900, 600 in the hands of the peo-
pie, that is, not in the United States
Treasury. This amount deducted from
S5,2O1, ,671, 100 gives us 81, 4,021 ,671, 100,
which is the amount we lack of having
money enough in circulation to make
cash settlement of balances. Discard
ing, however, the metals gold and sill
yer, we should probably be able to use
to advantage, with the present popula-
ton, the sum of S. 900, 900, 900 in land
currency, which would be $7s per capita,
putting the population at 64,0o0,000.
This is $22 per capita more than in 1866,
if we count the population, both North
and South, at that time, which would
| be eminently unfair and one-sided.
There was, comparatively speaking,
but a small amount of this enormous
volume of money south of Mason and
Dixon's line in 1865. The money
was almost entirely and exclusively
confined to the Northern States, in
which there was at that time at least
$40 per capita in active circulation. In
stead of this vast amount of money that
should properly be in circulation, we
have the grotesquely inadequate
amount, in gold and silver, of less than
81, 900, 600, 900, of which two-thirds is
held in reserve in the United States
Treasury.
But this method of computing or de-
Gliding the sufficiency of a money volume
by per capita standard, is, in all coun-
tries and under all circumstances, fall
lacious, imperfect and unsatisfactory;
and more especially is this compelled,
by the very force of circumstances, to
be emphatically the case in the United
States for the period reaching from 1866
to the present time. The true standard
of comparison of a money volume is the
amount of commerce, the volume of do
mestic exchanges, the amount of Ma
tional wealth in a nation or coun-
try. Computed and compared by
this standard, and we shall find
that even the per capita volume
of money in circulation in 1866
would be inadequate to keep prices
| of products up to the standard of
1886. We shall, moreover, in this field
of exploration, and by this method of
comparison, find striking illustration
and proof of the truth of the economic
proposition SO tersely and lucidly stated
by the historian Hume, as follows:
at is not difficult to perceive that it
| is the total quantity of the money in