Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1876 — Senator Morrill on the Resumption Question. [ARTICLE]

Senator Morrill on the Resumption Question.

The foltowing is the telegraphic synop. sis of the recent speech of Senator Morrill, of Vermont, in the United State* Senate, on the bill introduced by him to further provide for the redemption of United State* legal-tender note* in Mr. Morrill, in the course of hi* argu*ment, said he thought by Jan. 1, 1878, the difference between paper and gold would be much less than it is now, and that as a forerunner of resumption it would be well to provide that contracts after Jan. 1, 1878, shall be upon a specie basis unless otherwise specified. Thi* would accustom our people to the coming change and bring specie into circulation. He denounced the project for redeeming greenback* with an interconvertible 8.65 per cent interest bearing bond, declaring that the scheme was unsusceptible of any public or private advantage. He likened it to »h offer on the part of the Government to take and keep all the horses thrown out of employment at the commencement of the winter, promising to return them sleek and fat in the spring. He also scouted the proposition often broached that the duties on foreign goods may be hereafter paid in paper. This would virtually repeal the law of 1862 containing the pledge of the country that such duties shall be paid in gold and set apart to pay the public debt This is advocated by a few who are willing to wound but not ready to strike the tariff, as well as those who have wholly cut loose from coin, determined to sink or swim with paper money alone, and also by six or seven honest men who really feel, if we show how much we despise gold and how little we care for it at the Custom-House, that everybody will adopt the same opinion, and gold will then at once drop so low in value that all who have it be in haste to exchange it for paper. With much gravity they even claim this as the swiftest mode of returning to specie payments. By our flattering declaration that black is white we are to make silly bullionists, following the example of the crow in the fable, drop their gold, and,like JEsop’s fox, we are to stand ready to snatch it up. If these honest men are not mistaken, here is to be found a real resumptive boomerang which, though sent off in an opposite direction, is to whirl around and at last smite the rock from which will pour a flood of precious metals. He confessed to an entire want of faith in the boomerang movement. He ridiculed, at considerable length, the idea that we must not only keep and maintain a volume of currency equal to the wants of trade, but that it must be non-exportable currency, claiming that that very doctrine sent our bonds abroad. He also ridiculed the argument, frequently set up, that our only remedy tor currency largely inflated and below par is to wait and let the country grow up to it. The philosopher who waited on the banks for the river to run by was hardly more profound or patient. The bank or paper circulation, with a population of 31,500,000, was $207,802,000. Assuming the standard of 1860, and ot years prior thereto, as equal to the fair requirements of financial health and stability, with the country no larger, unless made larger by the ice of Alaska, we have now such an excess of currency that it we wait until the country grows up to it we must postpone specie resumption until our population rises to 116,646,401, with a corresponding increase of the wants of trade. It was a great delusion to suppose that contraction would benefit the rich and fall heavily upon the poor, while inflation would operate in the opposite direction. It would be exactly the reverse. He spoke at length against the injustice and bad policy of inflation, and reviewed the arguments of the inflationists, warmly praised the national banking system, and said if the banks were only citculating a currency convertible at par nearly all their defects would vanish. What we most needed after specie resumption to completely remedy our financial condition was more real and absolute capital. All financial tinkering in the world would not supply it. All the cheap expedients for making money plenty without earning it or without giving anything in exchange for it would result in disreputable failure. The sooner we learn that money can’t be invented, but must be earned, the better for the country. A debased currency, he said in conclusion, was demoralizing. Public and private expenditures are now too largely based upon inflation, and, so long as payments are made in the cheapest substitute for money, nothing in return but cheap equivalents and cheap service can be obtained. No permanent restoration of industrial prosperity, no permanent employment of workingmen, no safety to working capital can be expected until the Government permits its own operations, the labor of our people and the business enterprises of the country to be based upon the solid foundations represented by gold and paper at par with gold, represented by restored peace and morality, in accordance with the unbroken experience of the wise among nations and in harmony with the instincts of a high-spirited people ashamed of the exploded devices of paying debt* by the renewal of broken promises, and ashamed of the vacillating standard of, mercantile honor, worthy only of a bankrupt people, half maniac and half knave.

“ Open that safe,” said a merchant to an expert who had been sent for. “ Open it in twenty minutes and I will give you twenty dollass.” The safe was open in five minutes. “ All right,” said the merchant, “here is ten dollars—enough for five minutes’ work.” The ten dollars was looked at but not taken, and the next moment the safe was closed as tight as ever. “ Oh, how is that?” “ The how,” said the man, “is that I charge nothing for closing the safe, but twenty dollars more for the next opening—forty dollars in all—and want my pay in advance.”’ Cf course he did, and whoever has anything to say on the subject- can now speak.— Chicago Timet. Mb. C. A. Perkins, the husband of the Princess Isabelle of Bourbon, condemned a year ago by the French courts to a year’s imprisonment and to two years’ “holding of the body” for debts which the court* decided were contracted under false pretenses, has just finished hi* year at St. Pelagieand been transferred to the Conciergerie, there to submit to hi* two yean’ imprisonment for the debt, if the creditor, who has to pay hi* board, does pot sooner release him.