Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1875 — Is the Continuation of Specie Payment Impossible! [ARTICLE]

Is the Continuation of Specie Payment Impossible!

. Mr. Schorz, In his reply to Wendell Phillips’ latest screed, punctures one of the most common falsehoods of the inflation school, and that is that in times of Cic the Government of Great Britain given relief to the country by authorizing the Bank of England to suspend specie payments. Here is what Mr. Scliurz says on this point: “ The inflationists are also fond of telling us that such panics lead sometimes to a suspension of specie payments by the banks. This is true as to this country, bat when Mr. Phillips informs us that again and again in specie-basis English history the permission given by the Government to the bank to suspend specie payments has been the salvation of the business community, he glaringly betrays the greatest ignorance of financial history or a deplorable disregard of the truth. In charity we must accept the former. Every well-informed man knows that, since the resumption of specie payments in 1821, specie payments have never been suspended again in England. Mr. Phillips, in his evidently somewhat careless reading, found that now and then in times of panic something was suspended, and he jumped at the conclusion that it was specie payments. It is, perhaps, well to inform him that, instead‘of the suspension of specie payments, it was the suspension of the Bank act of 1844, authorizing the Bank of England to issue notes beyond the amount of specie reserve prescribed by law. That permission has been given several times, but specie payments steadily continued all the while. It is urgently recommended to Mr. Phillips to commence his historical reading at the beginning.” We submit this statement to the consideration of those who maintain that a continuance of specie payments is impossible. —Chicago Tribune.