Year: 1874

The same day on which SenatorC Chandler


made the speech in the Senate, from which
extracts have been given, Mr.. J, NJ


Forbes, of Boston, appeared before the


House Committee on Banking and Cur
rency, and made q sts tement concern
ing which the Boston Herald thus re-
marks:


Mr. Forbes of this city eleyerly stated
in Washington the other day the interest
of the laboring man In q sound currency.


When we hear Workingmen asking for
''cheap money" more currency, with an


idea that it is just the thing they need,
and that with an abundance of paper mon
ey in circulation everybody will have a
pocket full, and poverty will be abolished
we cannot help feeling that they know
not for what they ask, namely, that the


equivalent which they get for their labor
shall be reduced IN value. There are two
classes to be benefited by imitation of the
currency-debtors and speculators. The
debtor knows that if money is reduced in
value he can pay his debts easier than if
1T retains the value it had when those
debts were incurred. That is to say in
hation pays q part of his debts and cheats
his creditors. The speculator finds his op-
portunity in the huctuation Of prices
csused by imitation. It makes all kinds
of business games of chance. The lsgiti-
mate merchant is bothered because he
cannot tell what he can get for his goods
three or six months after he buys them,
but it is upon the changes that the specu-
-lator lives. He is as likely to lose as to
gain ; his fortune fuctuates like the prices
of merchandise or stock he is q mere gam
bier but speculation goes on and produc-
ton l&nguishes. Now the workingman
may owe q bill at the store, but his class
Is not debtor class. 1t is creditor class.
All the labor that is in q man is his
paid for. He has it to sell, and will in
the course Of his life realize on all the Ia
Dor that he disposes of. He isa perpetual
creditor. 1t is important to him that he
shall get his pay IN good money. He
must use what money he gets to pay for
his living, and all history shows that in
case of an imitation of the currency labor is
the last thing to appreciate. Stocks go up,
merchandise Of all sorts goes up, then real
estate, and, last, labor. But labor never
appreciates in proportion to other things,
because it cannet be "cornered" and spec
ulated upon. The laboring man can new
er be a speculator; he cannot buy in ad-
vance and wait for q raise. Every dollar
made by the speculator in that way
ultimately comes out of the wages of la
Dor.


The following is the portion Of Mr..
Forbes statement referred to by the Her
aid, To this we append an extract from
his cross-sxamination by the Commit
tee:


There is not a shadow Of doubt that the
hard handed laboring producer has the first
and deepest interest in returning to q
sound currency.


Mr. Nourse has shown that the laborer
is by far the largest creditor. He esti-
mates that there is on the average one
thousand million of dollars in the savings
banks and other trusts, and in the little
parsonal boards of the working man; and
another thousand millions due him from
his employers on the back pay roll but
beyond this he Is totally unable to take
advantage of the huctuAtion of prices
caused by rise and fall in irredeemable
paper money.


From the Wall street or State street
speculator down to the country store
keeper, every one but the laborer has
some chance to catch the ball on the bound
and profit by the fuctuation.


The laborer who creates the greater
part of the annual wealth Of the country
must take the prices which are fixed upon
him when the weekly or monthly pay roll
comes round.


The capitalist, who chooses to speculate,
can make more money out ofa huetuating
currency than out of steady one. BE
does it, of course, at a greater risk, and
some of the players will always go under,
while others come out millionaires but
the sure victim, the residuary legatee of
all the blunders of our gambling system is
the laborer. --


Prices fall for him latest while they rise
soonest.


So much for classes, now for sec
tiens.


While every steady producing industry
suffers by an unsteady currency, and bv
prices banded about by spectators, the
West and the South. being mainly devot-
ed to agriculture suffer most.


Everything which they produce and
sell is measured in value by the export
price, or, in other words, by gold, while
every article they buy is paid for IN prices
based on paper, which are very much
higher than the premium on gold.


Authorities disagree as to what this
difference IN price il, but those best inform
ed put it at between 20 and 80 per cent
higher prices than the mere premium on
gold which is all they get on their sales
of produce based on gold.