Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1875 — Speeie Payments and the Debtor Class. [ARTICLE]

Speeie Payments and the Debtor Class.

Yesterday we referred to the fact that of a currency at par with specie value would be highly beneficial to the country, bu they are jjereonally in debt, under contracts made m depreciated currency, ami specie payments would compel them to pay fifteen cents more on the dollar in satisfaction of their debts than they will have to pay if the currency remain at its present value. These persona are honest; they owe debts which are to mature within one or more years, and they shrink from any measure which seems to have the effect to add fifteen cents on the dollar of the-amount tney will hare to pay. It is easy to understand how personal considerations influence men’s votes and actions, and how men, however convinced of the general evil of a depreciated currency, object to being compelled to 15 per cent, for which they have received no consideration. Outside of the bankrupt and desperate speculators who do not want money worth even eighty-five cents, but who want it run down to fifty or forty cents on the dollar—and the lower the better for them—this objection to paying debts for which there is no consideration is the only one which influences thousands of honest and intelligent persons in opposing a resumption of specie payments. Can tills objection be removed by any measure which will facilitate specie resumption without disturbing existing relations between debtors and creditors, and which will not contract the volume of legal-tenders for the payment of debts? We taink such a measure not only practicable, but highly essential to any resumption of specie payments. Let Congress this winter enact: 1. That the holder of greenbacks, upon presentation of them to the Treasury Department, be entitled to receive in exchange therefor 4 per cent, gold bonds, of the denomination of SSO or SIOO, or any multiple of SIOO. 2. That these bonds, having thirty years to run from the date of issue, be made legal-tenders in the payment es all debts and contracts made before, say, the 4th of July, 1876. 3. That the legal-tender for all contracts made after that date shall be the coin of the United States, except when payment otherwise may be expressly stipulated. Here, then, we have the problem of specie payments solved without any disturbance of the relations of debtor and creditor. For all purposes of payment of debts the greenbacks in their new form of bonds will be available. The bonds themselves will, at present prices of money, be worth about eighty to eighty-five cents on the dollar in coin. The Government 5 per cents, are worth par, and the 4 per cents, would range from eighty to eightyfive cents. They will continue to be bought and sold as the currency now is, for the purpose of making payments of debt, and will pass from hand to hand as currency in all transactions over fifty dollars. For thirty years these bonds or the unfunded currency will continue to serve as a legal-tender for debts already contracted, and that period will cover all existing liabilities of individuals, corporations and municipal governments. No man or municipality will be called upon to pay debts in any other currency than that in which they were contracted. At the time by law for the beginning of new contracts under the coin le-gal-tender, there will not be the slightest difficulty in finding all the gold necessary. As we have repeatedly shown, the volume of currency actually handled in the payment of debts is comparatively very small. It is less than 8 per cent. The exchanges of the country are made by the transfer of credits through the agency of the banks. . The greenback currency and the legal-tender bonds will take the place, in the general business of the country, that the currency now occupies in the business of California. Greenbacks can be disposed of in Canada, England or France; that is, they # will be taken in exchange for gold at their current value.. A considerable proportion of the business of Canada is done in American currency. Canada will sell all she has for greenbacks—taking them at their market value. In California and on the Pacific coast the greenbacks are received in all business transactions for what they are worth in coin. Bo when gold and silver are made the legal-tender in all new contracts the paper currency will be used as now, except that instead of being the measure of prices it will be takeri'at its coin value. The currency will lose none of its purchasing power and will be relieved from most of its fluctuations when it passes into the shape of 4 per cent, legal-tender gold bonds. The only change will be that it will be received in the purchase of property and in payment of labor at its market value, which may be estimated at about 85 per cent., with a tendency to increase in a few years to 90 per cent. After the day named all new debts to or from banks will be on the basis of specie values; all new deposits will be received at their value in gold, and will be payable on demand in gold value; and, except in the case of old debts, the banks will practically resume specie payments without shock or difficulty. The demand for gold in the United States at present is almost limited to the sum needed for payment of duties, which is again paid out in the shape of interest on the public debt," and for transmission abroad to pay for our purchases and other foreign liabilities to the extent that our exports do not cover. The uses for gold in this country being increased, gold, übeying the inevitable laws of trade, will flow hither in sufficient quantity to meet all needful demands. We published a few days ago the fact that some of the New England cotton-mills have begun the exportation of their manufactures. A return to a specie standard would make the export trade general; the country would manufacture more, having the foreign market as weH as the domestic in which to sell. Instead of exporting gold to pay our foreign balances we would woolen cloths, and iron and wooden goods. The world will eorne here to buy, if we will only adapt our financial system to that of the commerce of mankind. We will have specie payments, leaving debtors and creditors to settle all existing contracts in paper; but for the new century we will begin on the healthy and permanent basis of speoie values, and contracts in honest money having a Vtlto.—Ckicayo Triune,