The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1895-02-27
LOCAL CURRENCY.
AN IMPERATIVE NEED IN RURAL
COMMUNITIES.

COMMUNl tlc0.
r-,.,ce and Practice in Great Britain.
The Second Bank--Col. Iouman's
Convincing Argument Against National
Currency.
To the Editor OF The State: In my
preceding articles have endeavored to
show that gold is too scarce to alone
constitute the money Of final redemp-
ton. That. as the money basis, it is
entirely too narrow to sustain a vol
unae of circulation sufficient to meet
the requirements of increasing popula-
tons and expanding businessactivltleS
and that its failure to efficiently per
form this function results III a COM
parative contraction of themoney vol,
ume. which disturbs property values,
dislocates prices and produces that un.
certainty. apprehension and genera!
distrust, which chills enterprise and
investment, paralyzes industry and
spreads broadcast want and distress.
That the gold standard is most hazard,
Gus for this country, first, because
England, controlling about two oll-
lions of American securities, three-
fourths of them payable in gold, holds
practically an open lien on our nnah-
ces more than fifteen times as large as
our treasury reserve, and four tunes
as GREAT as our entire volume OF gold.
This lien. which she can exercise at
any time by throwing these securities
upon our market, not onl SUBJECTS
our entire financial system to her
whin1s and caprices, but giving her
control of our currency, gives her also
control OF our exchanges and enables
her to set the price of our foreign eN-
ports; and in conjunction with the
Northeast, she is helping herself to
our cotton and wheat at prices, which
they have set below the cost of pro-
duction. Second, because placing us
on the same financial plane with Eu-
rope, it not only exposes our system
to the hazards of drainage and col
lapse by every panic and war IL E0-
rope, but compells us to repreSS our
labor and reduce our prices below the
European level, so as to be enabled to
rlnderbid Europe for geld. Them
table result Of which will be to de-
grade eightv-fve per cent. Of our peo-
ple to parity with the toll, sUbjection
and wretchedness fthe pauper masses
of Europe. The pretense that any Il
nancial system which we may adopt
viii unsettle our exchanges or dislo-
cate our commercial relations With
Europe, are all the merest twaddle.
We do not now, nor have we ever
conducted these exchanges with the
slightest regard to our financial system
or even to our coinage laws; While II
is true that the Bank of England usu-
ally receives the Russian lmperlals.
the French Napoleons and the Ameri,
can Eagles without melting, it only
does so because Of their standard
weight. We settle our balances with
Europe not by coins but with bullion
and by weight: and to settle this false
cry of ''fulI value money of the
world" I will quote the highest au,
thority on finance, Sir Walter Bage,
OF, see Lombard Street, page A
ssWithin a country the acJion of 2
government can settle the quantity
and therefore the value its currency
but outside it's own country no govern
ment can do so. Bullion is the cash
of international trade; paper curren-
cies are of no use there, and coins pass
only as they contain more or less bui-
lion"
We settled our debts with Europe in
bullion when we were on an neon
yertible paper basis, we settle IN the
same manner now, and will continue
to do so, no matter what standard we
may adopt. As it is my purpose IN
this article to discuss the Alliance and
Populist idea of confning our note IS
sues entirely to the Federal Treasury,
and to deal with a theory similar IN
some respects, that all Of our paper
circulation should be guaranteed by
the Federal government, so as to rem
der it equally current in all sections
OF the Union, I propose to lay down at
the outset and to sustain the PROPOSE,
ton, as a well established fact, that
any currency which circulates equally
at par in every section of a country
viii congest at the great commercial
centres and flow freely only In the
great arteries of trade, leaving the ru
fal districts and more remote sections
bare of money and subjected to a usu
rious rate of interest. This kind of a
currency once concentrated in the
great channels of trade, as it will be
by an inexorable law of finance, there
are no automatic influences to reds
tribute it. Consequently this redistri
button is only effected by the applica
ton of some extra stimulus, which US
ually appears in the guise of extra IN.
terest and heavy brokerage. To deal
intenigently with the questions Of
of this nature, we cannot be governed
by the edicts of political parties, OF
the expressions of oH-hand opinion,
but only by careful investigation OF
the phenomina resulting from similar
financial conditions in the past. The
records of the great continental ma
tons furnish but a meagre field fol
this investigation, subjected not only
to the disturbances of internal dissen,
tons, but to the greater risk of for,
eign invasion and plunder, which
they have several times realized dur,
ing the last century. They have only
recently begun to develop tendency
towards perfection in their financial
systems, and this Development has
been seriously retarded by the appre-
tensions of their people, naturally
arising from the experience OF loss by
these disturbances and invasions-re,
suits which have caused strong ten
dency among them to hoard, and to
display timidity towards the deposit
system.
In England, a country whose fnan-
cial system has remained stable for
centuries, free from violent revolu-
tons, and undergoing its mutations
gradually to correspond with changed
s,,,r,.o,,,S S;,,o o-e iS ,,,,oSarfaS q fold IN