Year: 1874

INFLATION PROSPECTS.


Unless the President is ready to interpOse
his veto second time, it appears to us that
the danger of a further initiation of the paper
currency is most serious. The nondescript
finance bill is now in the hands Of confer
ence committee That committee is made up
of two infationists and compromise" man
from the Senate and two infiationists and one
anti-inhationist from the House. They VIII
undoubtedly agree upon Initiation to a greater
or less extent There is small but decided infla-
tiOnst majority in the Senate. and large
inflatOnist majority in the House. TwO-thirds
of the Committee and majority OF both
houses of Congress want what is in itself
very simple thing, tO wit as much more paper
money as they can get. Their line of action
is marked out for them so plainly that they
cannot miss it, In the first place, some sham
must be incorporated in the bill which can be
twisted into a provision for redemption"
The value of this bogus redemption must then
be estimated i'm immediate initiation, where
upon the Committee will offer to their assO-
ciates in the two Houses an expansion of the
paper circulation OF one hundred millions,
more or less for u promise of resumption in
1876, or later. The promise never will be
kept, is never intended to be, and will be of
kind which could not be kept, even though
the effort were made. How many times did
the English Parliament fix date for the re-
sumptiOn of cash payments by the Bank of
England. and how many times was that date
postponedi The date originally fixed was
179S and the actual resumption was in 1921.


If Congressman knew as much about money
as an OK about the grass he eats, they would
see that the country is already OverstOcked
with the stuff which the Government gives Us
as substitute for gold and silver. The banks
all over the country have more money to lend
than they have had for years. That money
can either be loaned by the banks, or checked
out and loaned by those who have deposited
it in the banks. The money is in the banks
to be lent, and can be had cheap by
any one whose credit is good. Two
things are proposed by the sapient majority in
Congress- One is the creation of more banks,
or "free banking" as they call it. Is it ex-
pected that the new banks will lend their
money in different way from the banks we
have already We have two Thousand banks,
and those banks have an extraordinary large
stock of idle money, which they are Offering
to lend at low rates. The facts cannot be
denied We have plenty of banks. Those
banks have plenty of money. That
money they will lend cheap. Is not enough
as good as a feast BY ciea.ing more banks,
and more money, will 'or ever make money
so cheap that persons of no credit or who
have no security to offer, can borrow 3?
Would any bank managed by sane men, adj


vance anything, for example, on such promises
as the majority in Congress tender us of
resumption of specie payment in 1876 They
might as well advance the amount of the
highest prize on the security of lottery ticket.


The other thing in the cheap money line
which Congress proposes to furnish is an
additional issue of greenbacks. That expert


ment has already been tried, and where are
those greenbacks? Where else but in the
vaults of the banks we have mentioned 7 1t
is the habit of American citizens, when they
get an unusual sum of money, either to spend
it forthwith, or to invest it in some
security, or to deposit it in some
savings or other bank. Hence new
money almost Immediately gets into the
banks. In this way all the money manufac-
tured by Mr.. Richardson has found its way
into the banks where it waits for the devel-
Opment of a feeling of confidence III the COM
munity, the revival of business, the rise of
prices and the new era of speculation 1t is
not pretended that Congress- or at all events
the present Congress, can create confidence.
All that they can do is to load the banks with
more paper money, which, under present cir
cumstances, is to mix gunpOwder with
ones Winter stock of coal. There
is powder enough in the coal already. There
is, In fact, want of confidence in the coal,
and is that confidence to be revived by a
fresh series of explosionsi The trouble is that
sensible people begin to comprehend the ex-
plosive nature of gunpowder. There is gen.
eral reluctance to kindle up fires, especially in
close stoves. In tropical climates they have
way of catching monkeys by coating cocoa
nuts with tar -Pnd leaving them on
the ground in places frequented
by that ingenious animal. Seeing the natives
roll clean cOcoanuts about and toss them to
each other, the monkey attempts to do the
same thing, but finds that the nuts stick to
him, and so he falls an easy capture. The
same trick could not probably be played
twice on the same monkey. Are the Ameri-
can people. in the judgment of Congress,
more stupid than the apes of Brazil