Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1875 — Opinions on the Currency Question. [ARTICLE]

Opinions on the Currency Question.

PROF. SUMNER. “ Inconvertible paper is a suicidal folly in the country which adopts it.”— Prof. Bumner's “ Am. Currency," page 159. “An irredeemable currency is like a disease in the blood; undermining the constitution and spreading decay through all the arteries of business.”— Sumner, p, 833. “The story of Austria shows that an irredeemable paper currency is a national calamity of the first magnitude, of which one may indeed find greater or less examples, but of which the least is a peremptory warning to statesmen and financiers.”— Sumner, p. 823. “Abetter and worse currency cannot circulate together. The worse will drive out the better. Gold will not flow in while the inferior currency fills the channels of circulation. If the interior currency be removed the exchanges will be turned, the outflow will stop, and, if any vacuum is created, gold will flow in to supply it.” CHARLES A- MANN. “Prosperity, based on paper, is like the exhilaration produced by alcohol; the discomforts which follow the debauch exceed its pleasure.” “ The issue of inconvertible paper adds neither to the amount of capital in the country nor to the efficiency of labor, and hinders rather than aids the union of the two.”— Mann, p. 187.. “As the emission of inconvertible pa-, per progresses all prices advance, and the rates of wages are enhanced with other things. But, unfortunately for the laborer, it is a rule almost without exception that the prices of all the necessaries of life rise more than wages.”— Mann, p. 196. JOHN STUART MILLr “ All variations in the value of the circulating medium are mischievous; they disturb all contracts, expectations and values. It is the already burdened beast —the struggling poor—that bears the heavier load at last.” “ There is no way in which a general and permanent rise in prices, or, in other words, depreciation of money, can benefit anybody, except at the expense of some one else.” HON. W. M. GROSVENOR. Not abundance nor scarcity, but uncertainty of currency, brings great loss to labor. Industry cannot really revive before it has a solid foundation of honest money. When money has no fixed purchasing power the rich have golden opportunities, and the poor are at their mercy. Labor has to pay the enormous cost of constant fluctuation. Many fancy that much currency means high wages. They forget that inflated prices hurt more than inflated wages help them. In times of fluctuation "wages, of all things, go up last and least, and fall first and lowest.” - Our currency works harm to labor by its quality, its uncertainty. Varying ever, and yet paying debts, it robs somebody continually, and, most of all, farmers and laborers. , How will it give such paper fixed value to issue more of it ? It is not so much trouble for a man to get rich as it is to tell when he’s got rich.