Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1913 — COINS TO NICARAGUA [ARTICLE]

COINS TO NICARAGUA

Money Is Shipped from New York to the Capital.

Funds Bent on Steamer Are In Bllver and Copper Will Replace the Discredited Paper Now' in Circulation.

New York.—Wheb the steamship Panama, bound for the port of Panama, sailed from her pier in the North River she carried cointf to the value of over SIBO,OOO, which are destined for Nicaragua, and form part of a project of putting the currency of that republic on a new and solid basis. The coins are packed in some sixtyfour boxes and twenty-five “drums.” They are entirely copper and silver. They will be transshipped acroßS the isthmus and thence by steamer to Managua, the capital, on the weal coast. ~

The coins and paper money as well will be put in circulation, and will gradually replace the old depreciated paper currency of the country. In the course of the next few weeks over SIOO,OOO in money will be shipped to Bluefieids, on the Atlantic coast, so that the money will be put into circulation practically simultaneously. At about the same time a load of bank notes issued by the new National Bank of Nicaragau will also be shipped to the country. Not only will the general value of the Nicaraguan currency be changed in the course of the next few months, but the denominations of the currency will be entirely altered Hitherto the standard coin of the country has been the peso, originally worth about 20 cents, which has been depreciated by constant and reckless Issues of paper money, till,-two years ago, its value was 5 cents. The new national coinage, and also the paper currency, will be modeled on the American system. The standard will be the “cordoba,” a silver coin equal in value to an American- dollar. The smallest banknote will be the one-cordoba bill; the silver will be of the same denomination as the American, with the addition of a copper half-cent This shipment is the most substantial accomplishment of a two years’ campaign to reform the financial condition of Nicaragua. The firm of J. ft W. Seligman Co. of 1 William street, which first understock to help finance the republic in 1911, has advanced the money necessary for the issuing of the new currency, having among other

securities, a certain percentage on the Import duties into the country, to be collected Dy one of Its own agents— They recommended, first, that before any new money was introduced into the country a large part, at least, of the old paper currency should be summarily destroyed. This advice has been taken, and up to date a sum of $12,000,000 paper currency has been burned, and many millions more will meet tbe feame fate. The agents, it is said, commonly used the fireboxes of railroad locomotives as incinerators. This is said to be the nearest the Nicaraguan railroads have ever come to being run on Nicaraguan capital. By this means the rate of exchange has been lowered nearly 50 per cent and the paper peso is now worth the sum of 8 cents, gold, which rate will remain.

The new money will be-gradually given out as the old paper currency is called in, and 12% pesos will be received in exchange for one silver cordoba. It is not expected that the ignorant people will take to the new system without suspicion, accustomed as they are to vast fluctuations in the currency, but the intelligent people and the business classes will probably take the new money without hesitation.