Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1897-03-05
THE CITY OF GOLD.
Bank of England; ITS Methods and
Their Advantages"

Their Advantages"
Moral: IF large pecuniary interests
were concerned in denying the truth Of
the attraction Of gravitation, that most
obvious of physical facts would be
strongly and ably disputed. Lord
Macaulay.
1t is not charged that "pecuniary in
terests" have, as yet, Influenced the
Boston Transcript in its statements.
If, however, it should continue to ex-
tol the Bank of England its readers
may think otherwise. To encourage it
to read up" on banking and kindred
questions the following short narrative
from Pattersons Economy Of Capital
is submitted:
THE CITY OF GOLD"
London, as everyone knows, con-
tains a city within city; and within
that inner city there is yet another, the
very heart of the metropolis. 1t is
small place. In couple of minutes
you may walk across it from side to
side, from end to end. There
is to be found the spare capital of the
nation.
The City of Gold is based upon gold:
and the foundation is found to be
pre-eminently unstable and perilous.
The golden base perpetually oscillates
to and fro and each of its greater os-
citations is felt like the shock OF an
earthquake. 1t rises and falls, expands
and contracts and sometimes seems to
slip away from beneath the city alto
gether. Then goodly houses go down
by the doZen-not because they are
lily built-not from any fault Of the
architect or occupants, but simply be-
cause the foundation upon which thoy
all stand has given way. OF late years
this was in 1868 these oscillations
have become more frequent and more
serious; and every ten years or so,
CONFUSION takes place-not Of nature,
but by Act of Parliament-which
spreads terror and disaster through
THE GOLDEN CITY,"
and paralyzes the whole country as
effectually as if an earthquake had
strewed with ruins the great seats Of
our national industry. The merchant
and the manufacturer, the shopkeeper
and the day-laborer, alike find their
trade stopped, and their gains swept
away. Suffering and want spread over
the land, as If there were great fam
inc. Is there not something
wrong here? Ought the presence or
absence of a few millions Of gold to
make the vast difference between ma
tional prosperity on the one hand, and
national disaster and widespread suf-
fering on the other? How will poster
ity speak of us when 1t sees that we
made the huge fabric of our national
industry stand like an inverted pyra-
mid, resting on a narrow apex formed
of chamberful of yellow dross? Will
they not laugh at our folly, our bar
barism? When the usual supply OF
gold is temporarily diminished, why
should our usual credit-system be re-
stricted in proportion, or wholly sus-
pended? OF what use is credit but to
take the place of payments in coin?
Was it not for this and for this alone,
that credit and paper-money were
adopted? Why then not make use of
our credit-system as means Of COM
pensating the temporary absence of
gold? Why not tide over the difficulty
instead of aggravating it,"
The foregoing testimony Of distin-
guished Englishmen is merely few
fragments from the true story about the
so-called advantages which-the Bos-
ton Evening Transcript says-pertain
to the methods" of the Bank of Eng
land. SIMON STETSON.