Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1878 — Puppets. [ARTICLE]

Puppets.

Great Britain is triumphantly pointed at as an example of a nation maintaining for half a century a specie-based currency, thereby securing a steadiness in values which could not otherwise have existed, which premise and conclusion are not corroborated by facts. So far from Great Britain having a speciebased currency, she has floated for the last 180 years *£14,000,000 ($70,000,000) bank notes based solely upon a Bank-of-England leger debit against the Government, and by the Peel act the following issues, regardless of specie basis, were authorized : tEnglish country banks....X 8 090,000 ($40,000,000) Bank of Ireland 3,706,000 ( 18,530,090) Irish country banks 2,565,000 ( 12,825,000) Scotch banks 3,041,009 ( 15.205,000) Total currency without specie basis X 17,312,000 ($86,560,000) Notwithstanding this enormous amount of irredeemable currency, the Government has from time to time bridged over its emergencies by the issue of exchequer notes, running as high, in 1856, ’57 and ’SB, as an average of *£21,000,000 ($105,000,000), which, added to she other figures, gives a total, during those three years, of £52,312,000 ($261,560,000), without pretense of specie basis. 8o much for the premises ; now for the conclusion. It can be further shown, from official records, that so far from Peel’s Bank act meeting the claims of its authors that the putative gold basis would steady production and commerce by preventing momentary spasms, the Bank of England, in thirteen years and five months from its passage, changed its rate of interest fifty-six times, her rental for the use of money being sometimes 2 per cent, and sometimes five times that rate ; in fact, during one period of five weeks, she changed the rate five times. And yet our trusted agents at Washington insist that this nation—idle, poor and in debt to the foreigner—shall attempt full specie liquidation, with the demonstrated fact before them that Great Britain—active, rich and the creditor of the planet—miserably failed to accomplish only one-half the task !!! •Alison’s History of Europe, vol. 1,2 d series, p. 38. t Annual Register for 1845, p. 204. Encyclopedia, article Exchequer.