The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1895-02-27

these United States the current sets
from every part of the interior and
especially from the South and West
into the Northeast into four CONNER
cial cities north of the Potomac, Bait
more, Philadelphia, New York and
Boston, and all the bank notes which
will pass for money in those places fall
into the current which sets In that
direction. Where there is nothing in
the course of trade to bring them back.
There is no reflex in that current! 1t
is trade-wind which blows twelve
months in the year in the same direc-
ton" The president of the bank, Mr..
Biddle, testified before Congressional
investigating committee in 1882, that
there was an absorbing tendency of
the branch bank paper to flow to the
Northeast.
Mr.. Calhoun, in speech in the Uni
ted States Senate, September 19, 1887,
said: 1.-The connection of the govern
ment with the banks whether it be a
combination Of State banks or with a
national institution will necessarily
centralize the system at the principal
point of collection and disbursement" "
Mr.. Webster, in a speech in the
United States Senate, March -, 1888,
said: Government notes are no
sooner issued than they commence
their march towards the place where
they are most in demand, that is the
place of the greatest public of the great
est public receipt. If you want cen.
tralization, sir, and enough of 1t, II
you desire to dry up the small streams
of commerce and fill to overhowing
the deep and already swollen main
you will act very wisely to
that end if you keep out of the receipts
of the Treasury all money but such
paper as the government may furnish
and which shall be not otherwise re-
deemable than in receipts for debts
due the govrnment, while at the same
time you depress the character of the
local circulation. The correctness of
my proposition so fully confirmed by
past experience and endorsed by the
contemporaneous utterance of our alb
lest statesmen, is also thoroughly sus-
tanned by the conditions in our present
financial situation. We now have
only national meney-a circulation
equally current in every section OF the
U Union-"where every dollar is as good
as every other dollar" "
And what do we behold2 A thorough
repetition of past experience, the am
plest confirmation of the authority l
have quoted. Our circulation congest-
ed in the great trade centres, freely &C
cessible only in the great channels OF
trade, while in the rural districts and
more remote sections we have unex-
ampled scarcity anda most usurious
rate OF interest.
In the great trade emporiums of the
cities it is piled up by
hundreds of millions, and, while al
most a drug on that market at the
very lowest interest, yet it is only to
be had on reasonable terms in the
great arteries of trade; in the rural
money is scarce and only to
be obtained at an exorbitant interest.
In this section the farmers cannot bor-
row it for less than 10 and Is per cent.
As was stated in the memorial 'of the
English country bankerssit has to be
borrowed from these great centres by
local operators and reloaned at a dou-
bic charge of interest, one charge at
the trade centre and another at the
point of local disbursement. Under
The present system of finance, money
is distributed in the rural districts and
more remote sections only after sew
eral transfers, and; at every transfer
an additional interest rate is charged,
80 that by the time it rerches the rural
borrower it is frightened down with
such a heavy brokerage that no avoca-
ton except successful mining or gam
bling can long survive it.
To those organizations which are
endeavoring to. better the
condition of the agricultural classes,
and to those modest men who publicly
claim to be statesmen, End are yet
fighting the establishment Of local
currency, protesting to believe that
our only relief is to be had by exces-
sive. issues of government notes, made
legal tender, I desire to commend for
their consideration in addition to the
quotations already cited. the follow
ing, first, from VIM. H. Crawford's
report, as Secretary of the Treasury,
made to the House of Representatives
February "a, 1920: ''If national cur
rency should be established the de-
mand for it in the Southern and West:
,rn States, for the purpose of trans
missions, would be incessant, whilst
its return by the ordinary course of
trade, especially in the latter, would
be slow and in some degree uncertain.
1t is, then, believed that the
evils which are felt in those sections
of the Union where the distress is
most general, will not be extensively
relieved by the establishment of a ma
tional currency" Second, from
Thomas Benton, who, in speech in
the United States Senate, 1884, allud-
ing to a petition from North Carolina,
for an additional issue of the
notes Of the Second United States
Bank, to relieve a stringency existing
in that State, said: IF a hundred mil
lions of United States bank notes were
carried to the upper part of North
Carolina and put into circulation it
would be but short time before the
whole would have fallen into the cur
rent which sweeps the paper of that
bank to the Northeast" Mr.. Benton
sl all L 10 ho f,,ll,r ocfa hlishad first hu