The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1908-01-10
WASHINGTON LETTER.

Congress is talking currency. How
long il will be before talk is translated
into action, nobody can. tell The Senate
| is working on one currency bill aud the
House on another. The Senate bill prob
ably will be the one to be passed. The
House leaders say arrangements have
been made to pass the Senate bill with
''slight amendments But these slight
amendments may very easily be vital and
they probably will involve endless talk,
so there is not much hope for completed
bill inside of weeks or months.
The chief differences between the
House and the Senate over currency
measure are the quality of bonds that may
be accepted by the Treasury from the
banks as the basis of note circulation
| ing certain classes of railroad and in
dustrial bonds as security for bank note
circulation. This would of course include
state and municipal bonds as well as
government bonds The most conser-
vative members are in favor Of accepting
nothing but government bonds as the
guarantee of note circulation and there
| is middle class some of whom would
accept state bonds and other municipal
bonds as WE'LL The chances are that the
compromise will be found in accepting
state bonds. If the door is open to mnn-
cipal and industrial bonds, it is hard to
draw the line and the government might
easily get loaded down with lot of in.
digestible securities that were put out
simply to float note circulation and for no
other purpose.
When it has been arranged that the
banks are to be allowed to issue emer
gency currency to meet pressing de-
mands, the question will arise as to how
to force this note issue out of circulation
when it is no longer needed. The natural
way to do this would be by government
tax that would be heavy enough to induce
fthe banks to retire the extra notes when
they were not really needed. There will
be lot Of discussion over fixing the
amount of this tax. The majority opir-
ion seems to be that it will be made about
eight per cent But this has not been
settled any more than have any of the
other features of the bill 1t might be
good scheme and may be suggested to the
Senate to give the Secretary of the Treas
ury power to fix the amount of the note
| tax. Thus the tax could be made heavier
as the department saw there was reason
for The retirement, and could be kept
light when there was urgent need of the
issue and when the banks needed all their
money without putting much of it into a
government tax. This would be rather
like the bank of England's variable rate
of discount and could be made to regulate
the money market as no automatically
arranged tax could do
~
There is great rejoicing in the Taft
camp over the outcome in Ohio Secre-
Taft seems to have won out at every
point. The primaries for the election of
delegates to the national convention will
be made when the Taft men choose, and
it really looks as though Senator Foraker
might be led at the Taft chariot wheels to
make Roman holiday if the Secretary
only gave the word. He will not give
the word, it is pretty well understood, but
the outcome of the state convention is
very pleasing to him and to his supporters
and is looked upon as going far towards
assuring his success in the National Con-
yention.
~
There is a good deal of talk over the
Philippine tariff and one of the latest
suggestions made is that there shall be
absolutely free trade between the islands
and the United States with a definite
statement as to the date when the Archi.
pelago will be given its independence aud
allowed to set up housekeeping for itself.
1t is said that this suggestion has been
brought about by the beet sugar and
tobacco interests and that they have
stolen march on the government. Of,
course many OF the Democrats are