Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1893 — BIG BUSINESS BANQUET. [ARTICLE]

BIG BUSINESS BANQUET.

New York Chamber of Com* merce Enjoys a Feast. —■ l ■■ ■“ Secretary Carlisle the Guest of HonorExtracts From His Address. The one hundred and twenty-fifth annual banquet of the New York Chamber of Commerce was held, Tuesday night. Three hundred prominent business men were present, Chas. S. Smith, president of the Chamber, presided. A large number of distinguished guests wcic present President Smith made a brief introductory speech after the banquet and introducedSecretary Carlisle, who made an elaborate address on the financial situation. Among other things he said: Money and its representatives, constitute the tools with which the merchant and the banker perform their parts in the numerous and complicated transactions necessarily occurring in the growth and development of our trade at home and abroad. It is not possible to do perfect work with imperfect instruments, and if it is attempted the consequences will not fall upon you alone, but must be felt sooner or later in every part of the land. Confidence would be destroyed, trade would be interrupted, the obligations of contracts would bo violated, and all the evils which have invariably attended the use of a base or fluctuating currency would afflict, not the commercial and financial classes only, but the country at large. No matter, therefore, what our monetary system may be hero at home as established by our laws, wh must cither relinquish a large part of our share in the commerce of the world or conduct our international trade upon such basis as the general judgment of commercial nations may establish. We cannot possibly change this situation, and, consequently, the only practical question is, whether it is better to establish by law an inferior kind of money for use at home exclusively and another kindfor use abroad, or to have all our monev good enough for use in every market where our people trade. Gold is the only international money, and all trade balances are settled in gold, or, which is the same thing, on a gold basis, all other forms of currency being adjusted to that standard. It is useless for the advocates of a different system to insist that this ought not to be so: it is so. and we cannot change the fact. But the gold eagle and double eagle are not accepted at a particular Vai nation in these settlements simply because the United States of America have declared by law that they shajl be legal tender at their nominal value, but solely because <thf bullion contained in them, if uncoined, would be worth everywhere the sam< amount. This a great and powerful gov eminent, but there is one thing it can not do—it can not create money. There art some things, however, which the government can do for the establishment and preservation of a sound and stable currency. In the exercise of its constitutional authority to coin monev and regulate the value thereof,” it can suspend or limit the coinage of oitlur metal whenever it is ascertained that the coins of the two metals of the same denomination are of unequal value; or it can change their legal ratio so as to make them as nearly equal in value as possible: or it can maintain the parity of its coins by receiving them and its paper representatives in payment of all public dn<>? and discharge its own obligations in whatever kind of money Its creditors may demand. Hon. William Walter Phelps, cx-Min-ister to Germany, also made a brief address, In which he referred to the work of thesindependent “scratcher” in the recent elections in complimentary terms, at the same time expressing great friendship tor political opponents.