The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-05-02


increase of business more than an in
crease of currency that is needed in
this country. OF course it may be ar
gued that an increase of currency will
produce an increase of business; but
that is not self-evident and there is no
proof in sight that 1t is necessarily
true
There is as much or more money in
the country now than ever before. Much
of it is locked up. There is no security
against the gravitation of currency to
the money centers if more is issued.
We are not arguing against an increase
of currency, but merely calling atten-
ton to a fact which ought to be con-
sidered in dissertations upon the money
and business question.
For some time money was locked UP
so tightly that no one could get hold of
it to use in business. That is not the
present situation. There is an abund-
lance of money to be had on loans with
igood and sufficient security, but there
lis a timidity everywhere about borrow
ling. There is lack of confidence among
men which paralyzes business. Until
that is removed there will be general
Istagnation 1t is not for the lack of
money, whether that be gold or silver
or the paper issued in the shape of ma
tional bank notes, silver certificates and
treasury notes
One of the weak points in the strong
reasoning of the extreme silver advo-
Icates, who look upon the free coinage
Iof the white metal as the great sum
mum bonum and cure-all of the world,
lis the failure to show how the silver.
when coined, will reach the classes who
are most in need of money outside of
the silver producing regions, and how
lit is to be prevented from reaching the
same centers where the masses of
money have gravitated before.
One of the agencies, in our opinion.
by which business will be recuperated
and confidence restored will be the pas
sage of the bill for the settlement of the
tariff question. The basis on which
business is to be conducted, in various
departments of trade and industry, will
then be established and understood. Idle
wheels will begin to revolve again. Fur
mace fires will blaze anew. Buildings
will be erected. There will be demand
for raw materials which will gradu-
ally increase their price until the mar
ket becomes over-crowded. There will
be work for those who want it, but this
viii not make industrious men out of
professional tramps and the chronically
lazy.
The obstruction offered to the passage
of the Wilson bill is a wet blanket on
public confidence and business enter
prise. We believe that in some instances
lit is designedly so. We view the course
of some Republicans in Congress as in
tended to delay the return of public
prosperity and its increase in the land.
F--AN-N my LII CoCG Will De the cOnSe-
quence of tariff reform. They are
prompted by intense partisanship and
they prefer party to patriotism and the
asendanoy of their political clique to the
general welfare.
But we think the Wilson bill will pass.
with some amendments which will not
materially change its character and pur-
pose and that when it has worked long
enough for its effects to be felt, they
will be of such character as to bring
about that business activity and general
prosperity, that will be evidence to the
nation and to the world that trade and
industry needed AN enlargement of
commercial liberty rather than high
tariff protection, and the circulation
more than the mere increase of cur
rency.