Cornell University Library HG 525.P53 Sound currency.Speech of Hon. William Wa 3 1924 013 681 451 New York State College of Agriculture At Cornell University Ithaca, N. Y. Library SOUND CURRENCY. SPEECH HON. WILLIAM WALTER PHELPS, NEW JERSEY, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIYBS, A-FK-IXj 1, lS'7-4. HACKENSACK, N. J. : REPUBLICAN l^RESS. M-^ S2S ^ /^j/fy LIBRARY JWtie 194? AGRIC. ECON. &. FARM MGT. Speech HON. WILLIAM WALTEE PHELPS. The House having under consideration the bill (H. B. No. 1572) entitled "An act to amend the several acts providing a national currency and to establish free banking and for other purposes." Mr. PHELPS said: Mr. Speakee, we are bound to give the people of these United States a sound currency. We are bound to give them specie pay- ments ; for only gold, or a credit based on gold, is a sound curren- cy. We are bound, whether we be liberals, republicans, or demo- crats, by express promise ; we are bound by the provisions of a law, the first ever signed by our Chief Magistrate ; we are bound by the oath we took as members of this House to support the Constitution ; we are bound by the conventions of Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Baltimore, which pledged the three great parties to "speedy resump- tion;" we are bound by the act of March, 1869, which "solemnly pledged the public faith to make provision at the earliest practica- ble period for the redemption of the United States notes in coin ;" we are bound by the Constitution, which was formed "to promote the general welfare." Can we better provide for the general wel- fare than by giving to the people a uniform, stable currency ? For the general welfare, for the interests of other classes, others may speak. Let me to-day speak for the interests of labor— the la- bor of the farm and of the shop— FOE THE POOE MAN. I believe, and I think I can show, that while the moral evils re- sulting from a depreciated currency fail uniformly, the material ill, the real suffering and loss,fall upon the laborer and the farmer. The capitalist and merchant, in the resources of varied exchanges and varied investments,may adjust and shift the loss ; the poor man receives it all. Wall street, and Beacon street, and Chestnut street may escape ; the farm and the workshop, never. Thejr^fore I urge to-day the resumption of specie payments in the name of " the farmer and mechanic. i I ask a sound currency for those whose plows rust in the ^furrow ; k 2 for those who darken the streets of Paterson with their patient waitings. I SPEAK FOB My OWN PEOPLE. And let no man smile that I speak for those whose wants I best know and most feel : I speak/or them, not to them. Shall I tell them of sufferings they have felt? Shall I point them to Ihe silent forge, and spindle, and loom ? They have lived and moved among them all this dreary winter, as men can live and move, even among the silent monuments of departed life. They ask for a sound cur- rency; as their representative, I ask for it in their name. They have waited, they are still waitiug, with patience. So far, they have asked for bread, and their Government has given them a stone; they have asked for money, their Government has given them a rag. Mr. Speaker, a century ago, a part of the English people gath- ered around Westminster Hall to impress a sentimental grievance upon their representatives. Their subsequent conduct was not such as the friends of order could approve. Not such would be the conduct of the Paterson mechanics, should they gather around this Capitol to impress their real grievances. There would be no noise, no disorder, no riot. They would stand the livelong day in patient waiting. They would part without threat, to let in and out the representatives of the people, and as each passed, they would simply say, "You believe the testimony of Jefferson, Jack- son, and Benton ; or, you believe the testimony of Adams, Clay, Webster, and Sumner. Give us the money they recommended ; give us a dollar that is a dollar. Give us the money of our fathers ; give us the money of the world." Mr. Speaker, I could spend much time in proving financial truths that were never disputed before thig year of our Lord. Why should I ? Shall I put up a man of straw, to knock him down ? Shall I tell truths that the theory and experience of the world have es- tablished ? Could I write them better than Smith, Eicardo, Say, Kiee, and Bagehot? Can I speak them better than Jefferson, and Benton, and Webster, and Clay ? If thei'e is a man who believes there is any other basis for a sound currency than gold, and who maintains that belief in the face of the world's testimony, and the world's experience, I cannot convert him ; I will not attemjjt it. It seems to me that most of the confusion of Ihcuftht and ex- pression that appears in this discussion is the result of INACCDEACY OE TEEMS. The words are used inaccurately. The confusion is one, not in the subject, not in the mind that grasps it, but in the terminology. Give that strict delinition to terms, give that 1 strict use of terms when defined, which rules in other sciences, and all confusion must give way to order and harmony. In the great praosss of escbange tliepe are two parts, two functions. For these two functions two different instruments are needed. Let us give these different instruments different names, and care- fully maintain the distinction. WHAT IS MONEY ? It is the measure of value. It is the instrument devised to trans- act the first step in an exchange. It is the commodity used to esti- mate the relative value of other commodities. Before we can exchange commodities we must know what is their real value. We must take a commodity of fixed value, and divid- ing it into units, make these represent the ratio which other com- modities bear to each other. This measure of value is money. THIS MEASURE OF VALUE IS GOLD. "Why? Because gold has the mechanical qualities for such a meas- ure. It is divisible and indestructible. It has, too, a universal and stable value. Now money must have value, because it is used to measure value. If we wished to measure the length of commodi- ties we should take a measure that had length. Did we wish to measure weight, we would take as a measure a commodity that had weight. So when we measure values we must have a measure that has value. And gold is the only article that has a universal and stable value.. Universal, for here civilization and barbarism, the past and the present, meet. Abraham counted shekels In the first recorded bargain, and William exacted from Prance a coin subsidy. The Pacific islander clamors for gold ; and for gold the poet laureate of Great Britain sells his muse. "But," says an ob- jector, "have not other commodities a universal value ? How with wheat ? Abraham gathered wheat before shekels. Glidden's mummy unfolded wheat mixed with gold, and your islander some- times says 'wheat' first, 'gold' afterward." All of which is true. But the demand for wheat is finite, and can be supplied. When supplied the price falls, for there is a glut. Not so with gold. The demand is infinite ; there can be no glut. It grows on what it feeds. The Incas, when their eyes were dazzled with its ubiquitous sheen, schemed for it ; apd our richest grangers— most virtuous of men— are still Olivers, asking for more. And gold has a stable val- ue ; not perfectly so, (for I have heard of California and Australia,) but more stable than any other commodity. Hence for our mon- ey, for our measure of value, we take gold. But besides money we hear of currency. What is that ? Money was the measure of value. WHAT IS CDEEENCy ? Currency is the medium of exchange. It is the instrument that performs the second process in exchange. After money has fixed the relative values of commodities, currency makes the exchange. And what is currency ? What does it consist of ? i Mainly of Credit^— Credit in one of its many forms, draft and note, bill and check and account. So we have two different in- struments, and two sets of names for them ; one setis, the measure of value— gold, money ; the other is, the medium of exchange— pa- per credit, currency. And here is the only opportunity for mistake in keeping this dis- tinction. Money is the measure of value— is gold. Currency is the medium of exchange— is paper representing gold. But as a princi- pal can do what its representative can— money, gold, can also dis- charge the second process of exchange, can also be currency. It can perform the two functions. But when money performs the second function, makes the exchange, it is currency. Hence a deal of confusion. From this we escape by bearing always in mind that while money is currency, currency, except the small part which is gold, is not money. . And perhaps just here it is well to say that no bullionist, no hard-money man, as far as I know, wants to use gold for currency. We want to use gold for money, for the measure of values. We want to use paper as currency, as the me- dium of exchange. In other words, we think gold the best meas- ure of value ; paper the best instrument of exchange, the best ctir- renoy. But it must be paper that represents value, that represents gold, and can be turned into it. - Why, then, are we dissatisfied with our present currency, which is paper ? For the reason that it is not real currency, it does not represent value. It was not born, it was made. WHAT IS THE OKIGIN OF A SOUND CURRENCY ? How does it get its birth? It is born in some transaction, and represents some value, money or property, which the transaction concerned. This is truest of the lowest and highest forms of cre- dit. Take the earliest conception of currency. It is in the very infancy of trade before money is yet used as a measure of value. My friend has a skiff on the Hudson ; I have a skiff on the Potomac. We wish to exchange. My friend takes my skiff. He gives me a writing which empowers the bearer to take his. This writing is A DRAFT, the simplest form of credit, the first piece of currency. And in the market any man who wants the skiff, or knows the value of it, will accept it as currency. This draft was born in a transaction— the exchange of skiffs; and represents value— property, the Hudson skiff, which exists to redeem it. Take a step further in the development of currency. Money is now used as a measure of value, and exchanges are to that degree simplified. My friend this time wishes to buy my house. We fix- the price. He has no money, but I trust him. He gives me a writ- ten promise to pay. Here is another form of credit. I walk, off with another kind of currency— THE PEOMISSOEY NOTE. This note, too, was born in a transaction— the purcha,3e and sale of the house. And the note, too, represents property, value ; for It represents the house which my friend owns, and which still exists as a means of payment. If my friend, when the note falls due, has the house, he can, by sale or mortgage, pay it. But suppose my friend has sold the house before the note falls due. If he sold it, he sold It for something — money or currency or propertyr-and he holds the money or draft or property in place of the house and the representative of his note, and ready for its redemption. Just as the skiff stood behind the draft, the house stands behind the note. But before my friend's note fell due, I needed a still higher kind of currency, one capable of wider circulation. Strangers reiuse it ; eo I go to my bank. The bank will discount if I will take the bank's promise. The bank's promise passes as money; so I take it. This time I go out with another form of credit-rranother kind of currency^- THB BANK-NOTE. This bank bill came into being in a transaetion, and represents value— the house of my friend, which still stands ready to furnish the money to pay the note, which pays the bank-bill. So under natural laws currency in all forms comes into the vol- ume of circulation, as the result of traneaetions, as the represen- tative of value. Its volume, therefore, regulates itself. There is as much as there are transactions, as there are values, and no more. But there comes a DISTURBING ELEMENT. The Government injects it into this natural stream fed by the busi- ness of the country. Government issues its promises, -not as the representative of gold, not as the representative of property, but as the representative of debt. Natural currency comes as the rep- resentative of wealth— the Government currency as the representa- tive of poverty. Why, then, do not the laws of trade eject it, this foreign element —this bastard currency ? They would. Men would refuse to take It. Nature would cure herself. But supreme sovereignty inter- feres and forces it upon the people. The people submit because they are law-abiding. "But," says the friend of the greenback, "you argue as if the Government gave away its currency. This is not true. The Gov- ■ ernment received value for it." Certainly; the Government received property for its notes ; but the property was bought for oottsumptian or destruction. The properly immediately upon its tpaflsfer ceased to exist -as th6 meaas for paying tfeie H©*es. H I 5 sold a citizen a cargo of grain and he gave me his note for it, th&- cargo of grain in his hands, or some one else's, exists as the means, of paying it. If I sell the cargo to the Government and take its, note, the Government takes the grain and distributes the grain, amongst its soldiers, and it is consumed, and no grain is left to pay,- the notes, nor can it be sold to furnish other means of raying; them. In the case of the Government note the property perished, . leaving the note unprotected. In the case of the private note the- property remained to produce the means for payment. This exv amination of the nature of credit, of the origin of currency, SHOWS ITS PROPEB LIMITS. Credit can act beneficently till it reaches the consumer ; there itv, should stop. Bankers and merchants are simply agents for the. exchange of commodities, and as such they may safely promise, to iDay with merchandise in existence, not for their own consump-. tion ,but for sale ; and thus they may conduct their operations forever • without .failure, through the various degrees of subdivision until | the actual consumer is reached through the retail dealer. Here, the point is reached where credit is most pernicious and should-be . avoided. The promises issued by the consumer, whether it be the. Government or the laborer, are not from their nature currency,, and any effort to force their circulation produces only confusiqni and loss. But this is what our Government did when, in the stress; of war, it issued its promises against property, which it consumed; or destroyed. Hence came the greenback, fruitful source of alU our woes. This increased the currency beyond its natural limits. It was in excess. There was more currency than there was prop-- erty for It to represent, and THERE WAS A DEPBECIATION. Let me not waste time to chronicle the now familiar effects of a depreciated and irredeemable currency. It is always in excess. This excess stimulates extravagance and speculation. There is constant temptation to be rid of a currency whose value is uncer- tain. Use it now, it is worth something ; retain it until to-morrow, it may be worth nothing. And so the spirit of the gambler enters into the heart of the nation, and after extravagance come specula- tion, crime, moral and material ruin. To chronicle what of this moral and material ruin is general, I do not pause. I pass this to show that the worst evils of .an unsound currency fall upon the poor. The harm of wrong legislation in Finance, as in taxation, falls and rests at last upon them. As a direct consequence of deprecia- ted money, prices fluctuate, so the man who buys cannot tell for what he will sell, or what his money will be worth whea he gets his pay. A^iiinsfc this uncertainty the rich man who sells can insure himself by adding a ptercen.tag;e to h|is, price. The poor man who. buys, buys to consume not to sell again, and pays this percentage out of his poverty. The rich man adds to the price of his commod- ities the premium on gold at each rise, and by continual exchanges adjusts or shifts the loss. The poor man has but one thing to ex- change—his labor— and does not know the hourly, daily, or weekly rise of gold ; find if he does, he cannot daily, hour]y,weekly, or even monthly add it to his wages. He cannot readily make new contracts for his labor, and, unfortunately, it is the only contract he can ever make. So the premium on gold reaches his wages last of all. Certainly, then, an IKKEDBEMABLE CDRKENCY IS NOT FOB THE POOR MAN. If it is for the benefit of any, it is for the rich man and for the speculator. The more rich the man, the more desperate the spec- ulator, the more easily he avoids the losses ; the more certainly he profits by the fluctuations. Increase the number and variety of transactions, and you increase the opportunities to adjust or shift the burdens of a fluctuating currency. The poor man, who hivs nothing to sell but his labor, and who has everything to buy- lodging, food, clothing— flnds his labor receiving only the premiunj on gold. This is bad for him atone end.anditisequallybadatthe other ; for, for his support, he pays, in each case, something be^ yond the premium . And this brings us to the general principle, that the premium on gold does not accurately measure the advance of prices, except in those articles that we export. In all other arti- cles, prices rise beyond the gold premium, and this rise is due to the percentage added on each exchange^ to insure the seller against subsequent depreciation of the money in which he shall be paid. Naturally the increase in price will be least in those oommodi- ties which pass directly from producer to consumer, and greatest In those which are subjected to most frequent transfers. When Mr. Low buys his tea in China, he pays for it in gold. The Chi- nese as yet are not intelligent enough to accept "the best curren- cy the world ever saw. " When the tea is In his warehouse— freight, duties, and exchange all paid— he flxes the price. He adds to cost the usual percentage of proflt and the premium on gold ; but he does not stop here. He sells on time, and before the time expires gold may rise 2 or 3 per cent. He does not think it will rise so much ; but it may, and, as he sees no propriety in running any risk, he adds 3 per cent, and the jobber gets Mr. Low's tea into Chi- cago at a cost of 3 per cent, above the premium on gold, and when my friend from Kansas stopped overlast November and bought his family chests to send to Wyandotte, the Chicago merchant said, "This M. C. will not remit before the 5th of next month; by that time some more of the $44,000,000 will be out and the premium on gold, instead of being 6, as it is now, may b© 10 or 12 ; I will add 5 per cent, to guard against loss." So when this tea reaches the lit- tle grangers at Wyandotte, t^bough gold is up only 10 per o«nt., tea 8 Iff up 18 per cent. ; 3 per cent, added by the New Tork importer, andi 5 per cent, added by the Chicago jobber. So in any article, especi- ally manufactured articles, where the materials- have passed through many hands, we shall have the price naturally raised far- above the gold premium. And this is WHY THE FAKMEK, THE WESTERN FAEMEE, SUFFEES more from a depreciated currency than any one else, except the- poor man who has only his own labor to sell. Why ? Because the- western farmer gets for his produce only the price of the foreignj market. They raise and sell cotton, pork, beef, corn, wheat,, cheese. The price of these in New York is always the price in-' Liverpool, less the price of transportation. It must be so. If the- price in Liverpool were more, we should export, or raise the home price. If the price in Liverpool were less, we should cease to carry produce there and the surplus accumulating in N-ew York would' force the New York price down to the Liverpool level. This is the- theory, and this is the fact, that Liverpool fixes the price of our farm products. "But," say the friends of an irredeemable currency, " the farmer gets his price in gold and he gets the benefit of the premium; how, then, is he hurt ?" He is hurt because the depre- ciation of our currency does not measure the increase in the prices of the commodities he buys. Say gold is 110 ; say 10 marks the depreciation of our dollar, and the farmer gets a gold dollar and changes it into $1.10, will his $1.10 buy what it once did ? No ; rent, clothing, food, tools, horses, tea, coffee, all have advanced beyond the gold premium, and we have seen the reason. Each dealer added a percentage to guard against the loss of an uncertain cur- rency. And what is the EESULT TO THE FAEMEE ? He giets for his produce, in paper money, what he got before the war,, plus the premium on gold ; but everything he buys he buys at an advance greater than the premium. Wheat in Cliicago before the war was $1.10 per bushel, good sugar 9 cents per pound. Now, in the same market, wheat brings $1.25 and the same sugar llj cents. The price of the wheat shows the premium of gold, the price of the sug'ar shows the premium of gold plus an advance of 12 per cent. The impotter and jobber have not only charged the premium on gold to the consumer, they have also taken from him an extravagant rate for shielding them from further loss. So here the fluctuating currency was a source of wealth to the rich trader, a source of poverty to the farmer and consumer. All the manufacturers and merchants have made themselves their own insurers. They have charged the pre- miums, .which they themselves fixed, and the. laborer and farmer have had to pay them. It is net th'e Worst of %» ffeWHer's case that liis Jjufthel of wheat shall not bring him as much sugar, as many books, as before. It costs him, alas ! more to grow it. He pays more for land, for ser- vice, for tbols, for horses— more than before. And yet the perpetuation of a financial system which robs the laborer and the farmer to fill the coffers of the merchant and the speculator is a policy urged by those who pretend to be the enemies of the rich and the friends of the poor. In the name, then, of the laborer who consumes, and the farmer who produces, whose welfare is the welfare of the country, and whose welfare is sapped by a dishonest currency, give us a curren- cy which has gold for its basis. This much at least we can do. We cannot do all ; we cannot cure ALL THE EVILS OF THE FINANCIAL WOELD. Men will still fail ; panics will still blast ; Indianapolis will still want money; corn raised too far from market will still warm the disappointed husbandman ; railroad robbers will again drive their four-in-hands ; the wicked will flourish ; the good will pine ; Laza- rus will lie outside ; Dives will feast inside— in a word, man will still be human whatever currency triumphs. But with a redeem- able currency we can make fewer the failures, fewer the panics, fewer the Lazaruses, fewer the Diveses, less the suffering, less the vice. Yes, I admit with it— even with an honest currency— WE SHALL STILL HAVE PANICS. A world which does its business on a credit basis cannot escape them ; and this basis is one which grows wider as the world grows older. The demands on credit must increase ; for the world does not con- tain money enough to effect its business, and credit in one of its multiform shapes must continue to be the principal instrument of exchange. Only in rude barbarism does money discharge all the functions of exchange ; and as civilization increases the busini'ss of the world, credit by bill, by note, by check, by book account, is forced into greater exercise. How large a part credit plays in the business of our own country let the accomplished gentleman from Ohio tell, who long ago, by careful investigation, obtained and recorded the figures. From him we learn that that part of the currency, which is money, really so or legalized— in other words, the legal-tender of a nation— bears an Insignificant ratio in the grand total of exchanges. He found that the history of the CLEAHING HOUSE ASSOCIATION of the New, York banks showed that an average of ^fp^ricfi^J^ * t"^>/ legal money was eniployed. In an existence of sevente|aj|e|3 p^ /C ' ' a8aocia.tipn;haid made exchanges amounting 'to $273,661, 66o,000,- and isB'edJil/aof,^)^^^). .,«j , JUW 16 1942 AGRiC. LCC» 10 IN THE EEDEMPTION BANKS he found the percentage 12.1 per cent. In six business days these banks effected exchanges of $154,959,665, and used $18,770,708. IN CBBTAIN COUNTRY BANKS, fairly selected from different States and Territories as having transactions nearest to the farming population, where credit Is less generally used, he found the percentage 28 of money to 100 of receipts. The receipts for six days were $2,102,488, the legal mon- ey $599,328. This was the humble part played by legal money in our own bank exchanges. What the exact percentage is in the sections without banking facilities it would be difQcult to say. There it varies and in different nations it varies; but it is always small. In London, Bagehot assumes the ratio of legal-tender to total circulation is 3 per cent. In New York, as a whole, it is properly assumed at 5 per cent. In other words, out of transactions involving $100,000,000, not more than $5,000,000 of coin, greenbacks, and bank-notes are used. At least ninety-flve out of every one hundred millions is paid by checks, drafts, bills, and the like. And small as this ratio is, as a more advanced civilization forces new inventions to add to the many forms credit can assume, the future will probably see that that part of the currency which is money, will, as the years go by, bear a smaller and smaller ratio to the whole amount of com- mercial transactions. Try to realize this— the extent to which our people carry on their transactions on mere promises to pay, their commerce, their man- ufactures, their trade, all their industries, with money to pay for only fifteen one-hundredths of their business. And yet this vast system of credit stands the strain, this complicate industry goes on for years, until its delicate support is broken. That support is trust: the trust my friend has that his bank will pay his check ; the trust I have that my friends debited in my ledger for money loaned will pay when I ask them. This enables the bank-check and the book credit, or any currency, to take the place of money. "When this support is broken, when citizens begin to doubt the solvency of banks and bankers, and neighbors the solvency of each other, THEN COMES A PANIC— the child of distrust— and all, refusing every form of credit, note, or draft, or bill, or check, demand money. Currency is valueless ; the delicate machinery of credit which the ages have perfected ceases to work, and man, in the frenzy of distrust, remitted to his original barbarism, will take only gold. Uotil the panic is hopeless, if law interferes, they will obey it, and take the legal' money, which the law enforces. If the panic is hopeless, the creditor, doubting Lthe 11 ultimate solvency even of the government, refuses its legal-tender, and peace comes only in the utter ruin of bankruptcy. The trouble is the people have asked fifteen millions of legalized money to do the work of one hundred millions, and it cannot. This shows the cause of panics— the possibility in the human heart suddenly to lose its normal trust in its kind. And the human heart is the same and will act to the same causes, whether the legal money is gold or whether it is paper. "We shall be liable to panics always ; for we can never make the exchanges of our present civilization for money, but must always use credit mainly. And when we use credit, and the human heart remains as it is, we are always subject to the incursion of that distrust which will suddenly jalsy the ac- tivity of currency, and panic will reign. All we claim is that the liability to this incursion of distrust, this panic, is naturally greater under an irredeemable currency. The evils of an irredeemable currency, to which I have already alluded, tend strongly to pro- duce it, tend strongly to aggravate and perpetuate it when pro- duced. The reign of paper money gives us speculation and extrav- agance. Both use up money rapidly, extravagance consumes, spec ulation wastes it, or buries it in unprofitable investment. This twofold drain is felt, and a people whose morale has been sapped by an artificial prosperity are foj-ced to look about them. They recognize and exaggerate consequences which they have no courage to endure ; and in speedy loss of hope and faith they rush to save all that to them has worth— money. And the loss of trust, which leads men temporarily to despise credit and seek only gold, is pan- ic. Paper money has produced it ; paper money will aggravate it. Had we a redeemable currency, a currency that the solvent world has, the insane want of money would be met. The gold of a thrif- ty population, ever looking for the most profitable market, would come to our relief. The profits offered would overcome all obsta- cles and drain the world, were it necessary. But it is not. It is an unreasoning panic. The arrival of a little gold, the news of it on a westering ship, breaks the spell, AND CONFIDENCE EEIGNS AGAIN. Where we have a national currency of our own— the best in the world— there is no such remedy, no such cure. The national issue, if it has any value, has a limit. The people know that limit, know that the limit fixed for a normal condition of the market, is inade- quate now. And if it has no limit, the most ignorant know it is worthless, its legality fails to give it currency, and the national issue disappears with the continental scrip, the French assignat, the Texas red-back, the South American shin-plaster. Specie payments will not prevent panics, but they will retard and cure them. And here, too, is the folly of an argument based on a supposition that governmente can tell how much legal money is needed for a 12 nation's wants. The per capita theory is a vain one ; for the amount shifts from day to day, from market to rtiarket. In normal con- dition New York needs five millions of legal money to do the work of one hundred millions ; in times of panic New York needs one. hundred millions of legal money to do the work of one hundred millions. What amount shall the. anxious legislator manufacture for New York's wants ? Shall he make it one hundred millions ? Then it will take two dollars to buy a ten-penny loaf when there is no panic. Shall he make it five millions ? If the panic continues he can buy his ten-penny loaf for half a cent. I would counsel the anxious legislator under these circumstances to hold off, and let God and nature take care of man's wants. "Without further discussion let us assume, 1. That gold is the only basis of a sound currency. 2. That paper redeemable in gold is the best currency. 3. That currency must always perform the larger part of the world's exchanges. 4. That currency is that form of credit which gets its birth in business transactions, and represents an existing value — either gold or property. 5. That currency,' untrammeled by governmental interference, regulates its own volume. 6. That governmental credit, not representing gold in the Treas- ury, not issued against property in existence, but against property consumed or destroyed, is a bastard currency ; and, as a foreign and superfluous element, depreciates the currency of the people. 7. That a depreciated currency inflicts moral ill upon all classes, but throws the material loss and suffering mainly on the farmer and laborer. 8. That a depreciated currency tends to create and aggravate panics. 9. That it is our duty to legislate in the direction of specie pay- ments. Now we come to the BILL or THE COMMITTEE. I break no confidence in saying it is the bill of no member— it is lit- erally the bill of the committee— the result of conflicting views. A part of its provisions I like, a part I do not. But I am willing, as a whole, to take it. I believe there is more good in it than harm. It points and moves in the direction of specie payment. That is something. It tells the people we mean to be honest, when we can afford it; that we will make no more forced loans— Issue no more greenbacks ; but will by degrees redeem them all. Perhaps, after all. it is not safe to go faster. But with so strong a motive I would dare the risk of proclaiming resumption-as th«'«hief