Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1876 — Phillips on the Greenback. [ARTICLE]

Phillips on the Greenback.

We have evidence which almost amounts to demonstration that the receipt by the Government of its own paper will brine fold and paper to par ; and no man win eny that such a result would almost, if not qnite, settle the angriest points of dispute. First. France has tried the experiment for us. Bhc has uniformly received her own notes, and in her experience gold and paper have kept at tout equal during shocks that threatened to her very nationality. I know other causes may have helped, and that it is impossible to reason with entire confidence from one nation’s experience to another’s. Btlll the example is of g/eat weight, and should and will encourage our action on the same line. Second. It the law of supply and demand is still .in force, the moment two large absorbers of gold—namely, the Goveminent and the importers—quit the market, that article—gold—must rail in price. Evenr dollar of its fall plants confidence and help business. Third. You remember that the premium on that class of Treasury issues called demand notes rose and kept pace with gold: until the whole was absorbed, simply because that class of Government paper was received at the Custom-House, and had not been “depreciated in advance,” to use Samuel Hooper’s phrase. These facts, not to mention others, confirm our assertion that, very soon after the Government receives its own paper, gold and paper will rule about equal. I repeat what I urged mouths ago, that the most valuable additions to our knowledge of currency have not been reasoned out on theory. They have almost always come fsom expedients adopted by business men in nations in some critical exigency of affairs. Our present excellent National currency sprang so into being. We may trust the swne business commonsense to help" us to another step. Even the London Time*, conservative as that journal is, suggested in 1874 that, enlightened by the experience of our war, ire look to the Government for a cur-rency.-WWatt Phillip*. “ HAitl gentle spring,” says Thomp. son; and gentle spring hailed and snowed too.>' ' *-", ■■,